Funny things can happen when a government monitors comedy. And by “funny,” I mean “strange” and “not good,” and “not really funny at all.”

We need look no further than “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” the late-night talk show that the Trump administration has relentlessly criticized  and tried to force off the air. This week, the franchise’s MAGA ordeal  got even more interesting when Rosie O’Donnell guest-hosted the embattled ABC program. That would be the same Rosie O’Donnell who has publicly feuded with Donald Trump for 20 years running — and who Trump, as president, called a “Threat to Humanity.” He has also suggested revoking her U.S. citizenship. 

O’Donnell, for her part, had at that point already emigrated to Ireland with one of her children. Her status as an expatriate has not muted her dissidence. From self-imposed exile, she has called the president of the United States “King Joffrey with a tangerine spray tan,” “a bad joke who can’t form a coherent sentence” and “quite ill — and getting worse daily.” 

At first glance, there’s nothing that strange about Kimmel lending his platform to a fearless Trump critic. After all, he and his network are fighting their own pitched battle against this president and his Federal Communications Commission. Then again, O’Donnell revealed to Variety that she doesn’t really know Kimmel, had never spoken to him until recently, and originally didn’t like him. Yet there she was in his Hollywood studio, filling in for a stand-up with whom she shares not a style or a comic sensibility, but an understandable aversion to Donald Trump. 

This week’s four shows were sometimes funny ha-ha, but also funny strange. We can start with the audience that greeted every joke with loud, instantaneous, Pavlovian laughter and applause —  even though the material was of uneven quality. 

The segments, too, were of uneven quality or at least a little peculiar in a late-night environment. On Tuesday, O’Donnell welcomed a 3-year-old kid who belted out — and I mean belted out  — “Let It Go” from the Disney film “Frozen.” Wednesday’s monologue  morphed into product placement for upcoming ABC/Disney shows. Also, the audience was given gifts, a la Oprah.

O’Donnell brought an Irish flavor to American late night. To my ear, her monologue on Monday night seemed to reflect the work she has been doing across the pond. This wasn’t only because she made jokes about the Irish, but in the slower and more deliberate pacing of her set.

As for the anti-Trump barbs, until the final show on Thursday there actually weren’t that many, but most of them landed. Throughout the week, O’Donnell dubbed him “Petty Roosevelt” and “Mango Mussolini,” and bemoaned the “moronathon” that is his presidency. But on the final Thursday show, she really cut loose. To the tune of “Danny Boy,” she serenaded Trump: “Since we all know you’ll never be Obama/ Why not resign and make this country great again.” That’s the stuff, Rosie.

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Rosie O’Donnell: The people POWER fought Trump…and WON with Kimmel

September 26, 2025 / 46:06

O’Donnell was acutely aware of her tortured dialectic with Trump, the man who made her “re-famous.” This inspired the best joke of her four-day stint: “You brought me back, just like you did with fascism and the measles.” On Wednesday she exclaimed, “That’s all I’m going to say about you tonight, sweetheart. You gotta realize it’s time to hang up your wig and let Natalie [Harp] tuck you in.” 

One theme throughout the week was the comic’s assumption — likely accurate — that the president of the United States was somehow present, observing the proceedings, interested in her set. On Monday she saluted him: “Hi, I know you’re watching.” On Tuesday she suggested he was watching her monologue “from inside a catering cart.” On Thursday, O’Donnell shouted out: “Thanks to everyone who’s been watching this week, especially the hungry, hungry hypocrite in the White House.” “It’s kind of weird,” she continued, “to think he’s spent more nights with me this week than Melania.”

Given all the peculiar, awful and convulsive things that have happened to America over the past few years, it may be easy to lose sight of how weird this is. A comedian is assuming the leader of the free world is monitoring her jokes. And her surmise is not necessarily unwarranted! After all, this government is monitoring jokes on “South Park” and from late-night stand-ups like Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers and Stephen Colbert (whose show this regime likely played a role in canceling).

This circumstance makes me think of Monty Python’s “Royal Episode” of 1970. The very meta premise of that infamous program was that Her Majesty the Queen might be tuning in at any minute to watch the forthcoming skits. So, naturally, the Python crew devoted every other sketch that night to the subject of cannibalism. 

The finale of “Royal Episode” features a mortician (Eric Idle) who likes to munch on cadavers. His jokes are so depraved that the fake studio audience groans and screams at his punchlines. When the mortician tells a client (John Cleese) who has bought his dead mother in, “Look, we’ll eat her. If you feel a bit guilty about it afterwards we can dig her grave and you can throw up in it,” the audience loses its mind. The irate mob charges the stage and attacks the actors. Mayhem ensues.

At that very moment, however, Her Majesty is said to have tuned in! “God Save the Queen” blasts in the background. The assorted actors, rioters and stagehands suddenly change their behavior. They stand stiffly at attention and salute.

That clever sketch is about the funny-strange things that happen when those who rule us come into any sort of contact with the jokes their subjects make. I think the point is that the royal glance majorly deforms comedy. Comedians act differently when they presume their overlords are watching. So do the networks. So do the audiences. 

If nothing else, O’Donnell’s week hosting “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” — courageous, sometimes funny, often disjointed and out of rhythm — demonstrated the consequences of having a king who tunes in to comedy.

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