What Racy Joke Did ABC‘s Jake Tapper Convince Jimmy Kimmel to Drop From His Correspondents’ Dinner Routine?
- Posted on May 17, 2012 at 1:53pm by
Madeleine Morgenstern
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Comedian Jimmy Kimmel high-fived President Barack Obama after his hosting gig at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner last month. He recounted one off-color joke to Howard Stern this week that he said ABC's Jake Tapper convinced him not to use. (AP)
Jimmy Kimmel‘s White House Correspondents’ Dinner routine last month was fairly uneventful, taking shots at President Barack Obama and the GOP candidates hoping for his job.
But speaking with Howard Stern this week, the comedian confided he had one joke that was particularly over the top — and that it was ABC White House reporter Jake Tapper who convinced him to scrap it.
Via JimRomenesko.com:
KIMMEL: I had some jokes about — like Rick Santorum. I said something like — well, I didn’t say it, but: Newt Gingrich’s campaign is so dead Mitt Romney wants to baptize it and Rick Santorum wants to put it in a jar and show it to his kids.
STERN: You didn’t want any abortion jokes?
KIMMEL: People went like, uh-oh. I ran it by people who go to this thing.
STERN: Who do you run it by?
KIMMEL: There’s a guy named Jake Tapper at ABC News, I ran jokes by him. He’s been there a lot of times. There are a few other people — reporters.
The “put it in a jar and show it to his kids” is less a reference to abortion than to the death of Santorum’s infant son and how he and his wife brought the baby home after it died.
For his part, Tapper confirmed to Yahoo News that he did in fact make some suggestions to the comedian. Kimmel’s late-night show “Jimmy Kimmel Live” is broadcast on ABC.
“I tried to help Jimmy with the temperature of the room,” Tapper wrote in an email. “And yes, I thought that joke would cause the room to turn against him, perhaps even causing a stampede, with the Hilton getting in on the tar and feather concession.”
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Comments (74)
3monkeysmomma
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 7:17pmHow jaded am I that nothing would shock or surprise me now?
Report Post »denise55
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 10:00pmFunny, he was still able to get that sad, sick joke out. And why is it so bad that the Santorum’s brought home their baby HOME……..
Report Post »FreedomPurveyor
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 11:24pm“And why is it so bad that the Santorum’s brought home their baby HOME…”
Clearly, bringing your dead baby home to show your kids is highly unusual. Making fun of it doesn’t necessarily mean it is bad.
Report Post »myway
Posted on May 18, 2012 at 9:37amThese things come back around, I hope if he has children they don’t lose a brother or sister or if he has children I pray they live. This is not funny in any way, however Obama would have laughed for days nudging Muchelle.
Report Post »db321
Posted on May 18, 2012 at 7:50pmI don’t recognize America anymore – I don’t like it – the Devil may be glad – but God is Mad and he will have the last laugh!
Report Post »Annika2011
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 6:38pmTANGOTOMMY- so sorry for the loss of your precious baby.
When did the death of a child become an acceptable joke?
Report Post »This is a very degenerate idea. Poor taste is a very mild term
for a joke so very vile.
allyoucaneatbaby
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 6:25pmLol’d at that one, you idiots are so humorless, I feel sorry for all that know you.
FreedomPurveyor
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 7:14pmThe joke made me smirk, but I can imagine that it might draw a few gasps and leave more than a few jaws agape
On a barely relevant note, your name evokes an image in my mind of a buffet of infants served in various ways
Report Post »Harley2002
Posted on May 18, 2012 at 7:39amWell hopefully you can experience a dead newborn and we can all laugh at you Moron.
Report Post »PaBowHunter
Posted on May 18, 2012 at 8:10amMaking a joke about the death of a child is NEVER ok. And although I would not take the corpse home to show my other children, it is anybodys right to do so and not mine to judge.
Report Post »To publicly make a joke about the death of a child is sickening and clearly shows the moral fiber of the left and the Obama administration.
db321
Posted on May 18, 2012 at 7:53pmFreedom – Obama would have laughed his a$$ off and sadly, I think that God hating crowd would have laughed too.
Report Post »Tri-ox
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 6:04pmHey, anything to push obama’s destructive agenda – right?
Hollywood’s favorite 15 million-dollar cabana boy, B. Hussein Obama, won’t rest until America is completely destroyed – obama must go! OMG!
Report Post »GoodStuff
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 5:43pmWhy does this guy have his own show? What am I missing?
Report Post »Libertarian B 4 Libertarians Were Cool
Posted on May 18, 2012 at 12:53pmA sense of humor!
Report Post »In the O.C.
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 4:53pmIt is when I read stories like this one, about Jimmy Kimmel or any of the rest of the late-night hosts, that I truly L O N G for the days of Johnny Carson, who was a true, pure entertainer. These other guys – not so much.
Report Post »MAULEMALL
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 5:14pmKimmel was dumped by sarah silverman… What kind of pig do you have to be to get dumped by that piece of trash??
Report Post »Machtyn
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 5:35pmwhere is my LIKE button for this comment. As a member of the LDS Church, I cringed a bit at the baptism joke, but it’s funny in a certain context (maybe not in Kimmel’s context). But the Santorum joke was definitely too far.
Report Post »SAWB
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 4:45pmKimmel still thinks the tasteless joke is funny. If he woke up and thought it was in bad taste, then he would never have repeated it ever. What a small minded man Kimmel is.
Report Post »crusaderx9
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 4:38pmYou could not be more wrong to think that the hollywood liberal is harmless to this country. They are engineering hate and ignorance in the culture demonizing great Americans who are attempting to save the soul of America.
If you watch and support any of these guys – you are endorsing evil.
Report Post »jungle J
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 4:37pmonly savages do todays comedy.The sane understand.
Report Post »obrien871
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 4:11pmFunny Jimmy… maybe your wife will carry a child for nine months and it will pass away after birth and someone will want to make a joke about it. Good stuff man.
Report Post »obrien871
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 4:09pmWow, Jimmy…. maybe your wife will carry a baby for nine months and it will die after birth and some funny guy can tell a joke about bringing it home in a jar. hahahahahaha What an insensitive sick s o b… karma‘s a b tch guess we’ll see if it strikes or not.
Report Post »countryfirst
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 4:03pmHow many of the jokes were actually heard any way? Didn’t most of the people there have their head up BHO A$$
Report Post »LetsBeSmartAboutThis
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 3:34pmI’m a fan of Kimmel… he tells a good joke. I prefer his monologue over Leno (his jokes are SO watered down), or Letterman (the early Dave was so much more funny than today’s older, angrier Dave)… and Jimmy Fallon just isn’t funny at all.
Thankfully Kimmel pulled back on that Santorum “joke”. Dying infants are nothing to joke about, and Jimmy Kimmel, 44 years old, should know that. Bottom line, he pulled the joke, and hopefully never goes “there” again… for a Republican, Democrat, or ANY parent who has lost an infant.
Report Post »johnjamison
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 3:41pmJimmy Kimmel is a dou-che and an enemy to the free world.
Report Post »pap pap
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 3:03pmI thought he did a pretty good job that night but that joke would have been totally distasteful no matter where he told it.
Report Post »IndyGuy
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 3:25pmAgreed…Compared to Colbert with Bush, Kimmel was a riot…
Report Post »karmon7
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 4:13pmI‘m just glad he overlooked Google’s definition of “Santorum” I‘m still trying to figure out why Santorum hasn’t sued Google over this disgusting insult. Or why Google won’t take it off the internet. I know that Santorum made some gay guy mad and that‘s why it’s on there in the first place but with everybody else falling over themselves to apologize for minimal insults, this continues to go on.
Report Post »Anonymous T. Irrelevant
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 2:54pmKimmel, keep trying to convince yourself that you’re a comedian, as so many lefties do.
Report Post »Dishevel
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 3:23pmKimmel is a fairly funny guy.
Report Post »I do not agree with libs but they can crack a joke.
disenlightened
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 2:44pmNo fan of Santorum myself, I’m not stepping in this one.
Report Post »IndyGuy
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 2:32pmYou sure his name isn’t really Jimmy Rommel???
Report Post »PETTYDRAMA
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 2:23pmBig deal. So much for the 1st Amendment, right. THe right wingers are just as hypocritical about it as the left wingers are.
Report Post »Gonzo
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 2:25pmKimmel would have been jailed for telling the joke? I doubt that genius.
Report Post »Locked
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 2:29pmHow is the first amendment part of this at all? He could have made the joke, and there would have been a huge backlash. But not from the government – from sponsors, from pundits, and from offended citizens. He wouldn’t have been arrested for it. The first amendment doesn’t come into play at all; common sense does.
Report Post »TangoTommy
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 2:32pmIn 1968, my wife delivered a preemie that lived only 10 hours. My children, aged 2 and 4, did not get to see their baby brother. Try making a joke about that to my face and you get to watch me
Report Post »castrate you and feed you your testicles, raw.
COFemale
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 2:43pmI guess there is no such thing as tacky or inappropriate with you. It has nothing to do with free speech. He was free to tell elsewhere, on his own show if he wanted, but then he would have been labeled a DK.
Report Post »OutOfTheAether
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 2:53pmCome on guys. Tapper’s recommendation was not about the 1st Amendment here. It was about showing Good Taste and decency, something that Comedians seem to throw out in the name of humor. My Grandmother had a saying: “A man’s character is most revealed by what he thinks laughable”
Report Post »DogTags
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 3:01pmPetty,
As a liberal lefty, you can’t help it. You’re not stupid. You just got educated incorrectly. Self-censorship at the request of others is not a First Amendment violation. There was no government agent ready to slap cuffs on Kimmel for the “joke.“ There was no governmental ”prior restraint” either. Besides, the joke is very offensive and not funny (which is the template for liberal jokes).
So your appeals to the First Amendment are woefully ignorant.
“Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it‘s just that they know so much that isn’t so.” -Ronald Reagan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO_WM1uZyZo
Report Post »CatB
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 3:09pmNo .. but if the joke was funny .. he would have told it … they knew it wasn’t.
Report Post »Athinkerinaseaoflibs
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 3:09pm@ Tangotommy
Report Post »I am sorry for your loss. Even after all these years, it must ache a lot. I fully support your desire to feed various body parts to the guy. Problem is that he almost certainly is missing the parts you have proposed to use.
My suggestion is a threat/promise that I heard a Master Gunny Sergeant used when another person was being an absolute moron. He said that he would take his hand and shove it down the guy’s throat and have it come out his backside. He would then reach around and grab the guy’s head and pull his head all the way through. Now I am not sure that was physically possible to do but I was sure that if it was, that Master Gunny Sergeant was the man who would be man enough to execute the maneuver.
Since the moron was smart enough to know that he meant it and could do it, he shut up immediately.
PETTYDRAMA
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 3:20pmLove to see all of the hypocrisy from all of the so called “tolerant christians” on this site..LOL!
Report Post »Gonzo
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 3:40pmStupidity is hard to tolerate, forgive us.
Report Post »momrules
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 4:24pmPETTY…………Decent people do not tolerate crass, tasteless remarks, only crass, tasteless people do.
Report Post »Pounding_hammer
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 4:43pm@ PETTYDRAMA
What are you talking about?!?!
Intolerance? First Amendment? What does any of that have to do with just saying joke that is in bad taste, is in bad taste?
If he had made that joke, people (mostly conservative) would have groaned, complained, and said this Kimmel guy has bad taste.
BUT!
He would have been entirely within his right to make bad jokes, and we’re ENTIRELY within our right to criticize such bad jokes!
What don’t you get here?
Report Post »Tell us, what is missing from this picture, that your wise self can enlighten us about, regarding the 1st Amendment and Tolerance?
Athinkerinaseaoflibs
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 2:23pmHe must be absolutely brain dead to think that joke would not have the same effect as passing gas on an elevator with only two occupants. If he told that joke, the person who followed him would have had to comment that “ I noticed Kimmel’s brain is held in a jar in the attic, the label on it said Abby Normal”
Report Post »Gonzo
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 2:20pmYou would really have to hate Romney and Santorum to laugh at that. So, the majority of that room would have loved it.
Report Post »Teufel Hunden
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 2:12pmGood call! The depth some comedians will go for a laugh is enough to make you want to put the boots to them. Bill Maher is a bottom feeder and will use it. He needs his a$$ removed!
Report Post »mrsmileyface
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 3:46pmNo no no….Maher needs his a$$. Otherwise where else would my boot go when I cross his path someday.
Report Post »Mutiny
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 2:11pmThe Gingrich and Romney hits were funny but the Santorum line would have been way over the line.
Report Post »momrules
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 2:10pmAmazing………I would not have had to run that *joke* by anyone to realize that it was tasteless.
Report Post »Locked
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 2:08pmFace, meet palm.
Report Post »piper60
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 2:04pmGeeeee, you Think it might turn the room?
Report Post »