Late Night Last Week: The Reign of Jiminy Glick

Late Night Last Week is a column highlighting some of the more notable segments from the previous week of late night television. Today’s installment features clips from the week of June 24-30.

We are in the dog days of Late Night Summer. NBC gave Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers the week off. Over on CBS, Stephen Colbert and Taylor Tomlinson were also presumably on a beach somewhere. John Oliver won’t be back until July 21. 

Thankfully, 2.5 comedy legends were around to keep us entertained as the United States came one step closer to collapse: Martin Short and Jon Stewart.

Glick, Glick, and More Glick

Jimmy Kimmell was off last week. To guest host, ABC got one of the best two-for-one specials in comedy: Martin Short and Jiminy Glick, who shared hosting duties. While Short was the better of the hosts, especially when it came to delivering the traditional late night monologue, his pal Jiminy performed ably when called on for bits and, naturally, when it came to interviewing the stars of his beloved Tinseltown. 

“I know what you’re all thinking,” he said on his second night hosting. “Martin Short is way too famous to be doing this.” Kind of true. While Short was a predictably effective host, there were some tired throughlines to the whole ordeal. Plugs are obviously king in late night. So it is no surprise that Short’s interviewees included his co-stars on the also-Disney-owned Only Murders in the Building: Steve Martin, Selena Gomez, and Jane Lynch. Cross-promotion accomplished. 

And some might say that having Glick on every night was the classic example of “too much of a good thing.” It certainly felt like that at times. Yet there were three arenas for Glick to work in that made for an entertaining experience nonetheless. Plus, we will always have the clips. The first is the classic “Out and About” segment, a highly edited interview with punch after punch after punch. Glick came out swinging with Sean Hayes: “What makes Jon Voight so angry?!”