Ah, Tivo.
So, Jimmy Kimmel Live. The first night I enjoyed, actually. I've always been put off by Kimmel's smug Man Show persona, so his raw, pants-shitting terror in the first few minutes was almost endearing. Voice and hands trembling like crazy... "Ziggy-socky" that, bitch! But once he regained his composure, he got off some good one-liners about the Super Bowl and its attendant bullshit. Plus, the novelty of having Snoop Dogg as his co-host was... novel, and his frequent middle fingers gave the ABC censors a workout.
And inaugural guest George Clooney just didn't give a fuck. He actually sauntered onstage with a bottle of vodka and some glasses, and they had a nice cocktail while they chatted about what they could and couldn't say on live TV. ("You can say 'ass'... and you can say 'hole'...") The crowd was bombed too because there was an open bar right next door, so everybody was rowdy and eager to laugh. All in all, it was a surprisingly fun hour of TV. Rough around the edges, but fun.
The second night, though? Complete disaster. For whatever reason, somebody thought it would be a good idea to have a fake snowstorm on the set. NBC was having some sort of "Blizzard Monday" theme on all their shows that night, so in tribute to that, Kimmel had some stagehands shake phony snow over the set. Maybe he thought it was Lettermanesque. But a visibly annoyed The Rock... wait, a visibly annoyed Rock? The Rock? Anyway, the guy from Scorpion King was playing along but obviously getting more and more ticked off by the snow during his interview, and Kimmel's constant, babbling interruptions didn't help either. Jesus, I'm just trying to think of a dumber idea than constantly sprinkling plastic shavings into the eyes and mouth of a huge wrestler while he's trying to talk. Oh, I know! If ABC hadn't banned the free hooch for the audience after the first night (somebody puked, Disney freaked), maybe they could have pulled the drunkest guy in the crowd up into the rafters to piss down on the guests!
By that point I'd had enough. If the show's still around in a month, I'll check back then.
P.S. Snoop is definitely not off pot, or else he's just perma-stoned by this point. I got a contact buzz just watching him try to care.