Jimmy Kimmel Live! in Asia

By Nickie Wang/ Manila Standard Today

“Do you know Jimmy?”

“Jimmy who?”

In the streets of Singapore, Star World has been doing an advertising campaign asking local people if they know Jimmy Kimmel. “Jimmy who?” would more often than not has been the answer.

Yet, that advertising campaign heralded the premiere of Jimmy Kimmel Live! in Asia.

Hosted by Emmy-winning comedian Jimmy Kimmel himself, the show is now airing exclusively on Star World.

Weekdays at 10 p.m., cable viewers in the Philippines can have a different late night viewing experience through one of the most innovative and irreverent talk shows on the planet.

“We were brainstorming on how to add up spice on our programming and we all thought that adding something to the late night viewing will be better. Jimmy Kimmel is very popular in the US so we decided to bring the show here in Asia. We are the very first to bring the show outside the US,” shared Nini Yusof, Star regional vice president for affiliate marketing.

The talk show has been famed for having high-profile actors, athletes, musicians and politicians on its guest list. It also features elaborate and innovative stunts such as having Quentin Tarantino and J.J. Abram guest-directing an entire episode or picking up Paula Abdul, Flavor Flay, and Feist using the Big Blue Bus (a municipal bus operator in LA).

Early this year, a video-sharing Web site has helped propel Jimmy Kimmel Live! to new heights with now an infamous video. The video contains an episode wherein Sarah Silverman, Kimmel’s ex-girlfriend, surprised the audience (and Kimmel) with a video clip featuring Matt Damon detailing their affair.

A month later, to counter punch Silverman’s video, Kimmel came up with a stellar lineup of stars in a parody that reveals his affair with Matt Damon’s pal Ben Affleck. Both video clips have been seen by over 100 million YouTube users.

“Philippine viewers are very intelligent. I think we are ready for a different kind of humor like that of Jimmy Kimmel’s” said Adel Chik, marketing manager of Cable Technology Asia Corp.

In the show’s early episodes, Jimmy Kimmel served beer to his guests and let his audience drink in the studio’s bar before the show. When somebody in the studio audience threw up in the middle of the program, one of the staff had to carry that person out of the studio. It was the last time they saw alcohol on the show.

Also during the first episodes, Kimmel sported casual attire. In October 2005, he suited up and started wearing a tie and jacket. The makeover worked: in less than two months, the rating had climbed by 15 percent.

As the name suggests, when the show debuted in 2003, it went to air live in the US. But when some guests used indecent language or behaved badly (rapper Snoop Dogg famously flipped his middle finger on camera), it was decided to have a one-hour delay between the taping and the telecast.

The show, which had just celebrated its 1,000th episode, is filmed at Hollywood’s El Capitan Entertainment Center, across the Kodak Theatre, home of the Oscars. Jimmy Kimmel says: “We love doing the show there. It’s a great spot. We could make a bit out just pointing the camera outside and talking to people as they walk by. Not too many shows have that luxury.”