WRITTEN BY TRAV S.D. | I’m fairly certain I have nothing to say about the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel and the cancellation of Stephen Colbert that hasn’t already said by millions, but I do want to get my position on the record, and to inform whatever stubborn old coots don’t engage in social media or follow the news at all about what is going on. And also I want to offer some historical perspective, as well as hope for the future.
Once upon a time, there was much less television and a much larger audience for the shows that were aired. All of America watched three television channels. Sometimes, when there was a really popular show, most of America was watching just one channel! Consequently, the programs were calculated to please everybody. If the programming deviated even slightly from a very rigid set of parameters, thousands of irritated viewers would write angry letters to the television networks. If old television shows seem bland and tame to you, this is the chief reason why.
In the late 1960s this began to change but only a little. There was some cautious criticism of the Vietnam War, the opponents of the Civil Rights movement, and the Presidency of Richard Nixon, for example, but it was muted and oblique and you would be surprised how little there was of it. When cable television became widespread in the 1980s, there were more options for viewers, and there was a certain amount of increased political commentary on entertainment shows, but not as much as you think, because sponsors were still calling the shots.
In 1999, Jon Stewart took over as host of The Daily Show, and that program became narrowly focused on politics. That was over 25 years ago, and it was significant, but it was still limited to a niche audience, mostly skewing young, on Comedy Central. It wasn’t until TEN years ago, when Trump entered the picture, that everything changed. Whether you know it or not (most of you do), Trump is an unprecedented sort of American politican. The damage he promised to do — and did — to the nation, was something completely new, so it was rationally decided by the hosts and producers of several mainstream entertainment shows with large followings, that the orange elephant in the room had to be addressed somehow. And so The Late Show with Steven Colbert(CBS), Jimmy Kimmel Live (ABC), Late Night with Seth Meyers (NBC), and (reluctantly) The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon (NBC) all tacked in the direction of The Daily Show.
In 2020, I did a peice about how I thought these shows, and some others, measured up. But as I expressed in a forum we held at Coney Island USA this past spring, and in this post from around the same time. I have always been uncomfortable with the approach these shows take. They transform the unprecedented changes taking place in our country into a nightly ritual that we laugh at. I find them too toothless and weak and normalizing. They make the people who agree with the show’s positions feel safe, and it drives the other half of the country, the ones who needed to hear what was being said, away. So what does it accomplish? To my mind, all it achieves is a misunderstanding on the part of the public about the amount of danger we’re in. Hey, they’re joking about it on TV? Just like always! Just like Ronald Reagan’s jelly beans, and George H.W. Bush’s dislike of broccoli!
Then we come to the second Trump administration, where all of the Washington bureaucrats have been replaced by puppets who do whatever he says. Trump is now exceeding his Constitutional authority by using the levers of government to target and attack particular people. He threatened to withold approval of a major merger by CBS, leveraging the cancelation of Colbert’s show. And now he has used the FCC to get Kimmel suspended, basically for calling a spade a spade. Who remains in the late night slots at the Big Three? Really just Seth Meyers, since Fallon’s commitment to politics is about a millimeter deep. And there will continue to be criticism of Trump on the various cable shows (Daily Show, Bill Maher etc). That is, until Trump decides to swat them out of the way as well.
Yes, the jokes are funny and true, and yes, I am 100% against censorship or the firing of these comedians. But like I say, I’m not sure how effective these shows were at helping us turn things around, anyway. It’s sad and more than a little scary that these big platforms are being silenced. It’s comforting to hear loud, forceful voices of opposition. But these were never the appropriate platforms. Such messages as these shows are misleading. It was a lot of self-congratulation. Else this second administration would never have happened. Americans don’t need comfort. They need to be alarmed to such an extent that they will stop whatever they are doing and ACT. I’m doing it right now. After all, this might have been a post about British actress Fay Compton (1894-1978). I looked at my calendar and said, no, I don’t think so, not today.
Those inclined to be dispirited, please use your imaginations. Television is a 20th century medium. Not only has late night been fighting this battle using the tools of 1948, they’re doing it with a much smaller audience — in a country that has over twice the Cold War population. There are other technologies, other media, other tactics to be tried, some that are yet to be born. Look to the future. It isn’t 1950 — or even 2015 — any more.
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Note: The above content, reprintd with author’s permission, first appeared on September 13, 2025 on Travalanche (click here to acces it).
ABOUT TRAV S.D. | Writer and performer Trav S.D. (Travis Stewart) has written for the NY Times, the Village Voice, and numerous other publications. He has been in the vanguard of New York’s vaudeville and burlesque scenes since 1995, and has directed his own plays, revues, and solo pieces in NYC since 1989. His books include No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, and The Marx Brothers Miscellany: A Subjective Appreciation of the World’s Greatest Comedy Team. Click here to visit Travalanche.
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