Inside Late Night with Mark Malkoff - LateNight LastNight: Sept. 23, 2025

Episode Date: September 24, 2025

Welcome to LateNight LastNight, your daily recap on everything important that happened in Late Night TV the previous evening. Host Jon Schneider takes you through the biggest storylines from The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Late Night with Seth Meyers, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and The Daily Show.Today's show: September 23rd, 2025

From late-nighter.com, it's late night last night with John Schneider. And now here's John. Hello, everybody, and welcome to late night last night here today on September 24th to talk about what we saw on late night last night, Tuesday, September 23rd. And it was a remarkable night in late night television, and I cannot wait to get into it with you. Hope you've been enjoying this show here. We're here for our second day, and I really appreciate all of the nice comments for everyone who wrote and gave their feedback on our first show of late night last night. So cannot wait to keep hearing what you think of the show and how we can continue to make it the best possible for you to find out everything that happened in late night the previous evening. But without further ado, let's get right into it.

let's talk about what we saw on late night last night, Tuesday, September 23rd. And of course, we have to start with the return of Jimmy Kimmel Live to late night television last night. It was the thing that everybody was watching to see how Kimmel would come back, what he would have to say. Personally, to me, I mean, I think that this was probably one of the most notable moments in modern late night history, uh, finally getting to hear from Kimmel and what he was going to say after returning from suspension. So he is going to walk out onto his show with a huge round of applause, standing ovation from the crowd. It is really incredible stuff. And here's what we will hear from Kimmel. Anyway, as I was saying before I was interrupted. Yeah. So he will basically say as I was saying

before I was interrupted, which is a line that might just be like a funny, quick joke to you. but it is actually a very historical late-night line. And we have this great article out now on Late Nighter, written by our fearless leader, Jed Rosenzwegg, who said, this was a famous Jack Parr line, the second host of NBC's Tonight Show, who stunned viewers 65 years ago in this very famous late-night moment, quitting on air after censors cut one of his jokes.

And finally, when he did return to the show, he said this. So let's take you all the way back to Jack Parr's line. As I was saying before I was interrupted, And it's just a really cool moment from Kimmel to then recreate that moment there last night as he opens up his show. So, yeah, just great stuff. And then, you know, he's going to thank everybody who reached out to him to cheer him up the last few days, including all of the late night hosts. And I know that if you're a fan of late night television, you know about the camaraderie between the late night host. But I just thought that this was a really good moment here for Kimmel where he's going to talk about some of the late night hosts that called him to reach out there.

All weeks, I wish out of them, but some that I do especially want to mention are my fellow late-night talk show hosts, my friend Stephen Colbert. And obviously, the relationship between Colbert and Kimmel, besides, you know, all of the stuff we talked about with the Emmys and, you know, Kimmel fighting for Colbert to get an Emmy, the relationship is so strong, has been so strong for so many years. But clearly with them both being in a, like a similar situation recently, the relationship is ever more meaningful. So that was really cool that he mentioned him first. He found himself in this predicament. My friend John Stewart, Seth Myers, Jimmy Fallon, John Oliver,

Conan O'Brien, James Corden, Arsenio, Kathy, Wanda, Chelsea, even Jay reached out. I heard from late-night hosts. So, I mean, all of the late-night hosts past and present, he's talking about reaching out to him. He has this joke that's going to come up next about some of the international late-night hosts that have reached out to him. In other countries from Ireland and from Germany, the guy in Germany offered me a job. Can you imagine this country has become so authoritarian, the Germans are like, come here. Yeah, that's very good. Of course, yeah, if you were watching online, you were seeing that basically all around the world,

everybody was talking about Kimmel and this, you know, him eventually returning to the show, people could not wait to hear what he had to say. And it was really cool that he got to thank all of those people last night after that. clip that I just played for you. He's also going to mention his boyhood idols, Howard Stern and David Letterman, who he spoke to as well and wanted to point them out, you know, in particular. He also will thank the people who he doesn't usually agree with politically, but thanks those that supported him being able to speak freely. He mentions people like Ben Shapiro and Candice Owens, Ted Cruz, you know, who we talked about a lot yesterday. That was a big subject on late

night on Monday. So really cool stuff for Kimmel to, you know, thank all of those people for everything they said about him being able to speak freely and come back on. the air. Of course, the moments that I think that, you know, was people were most anticipating was what he was going to say regarding the Republican's reaction to conservative activist Charlie Kirk's shooting death and his comments on that. And here we go. This is what Kimmel will say. You understand that it was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man. I don't think there's anything funny about it. I posted a message on Instagram on the day he was killed, sending love to his family,

and asking for compassion, and I meant it. I still do. Nor was it my intention to blame any specific group for the actions of what it was obviously a deeply disturbed individual. That was really the opposite of the point I was trying to make. But I understand that to some that felt either ill-timed or unclear. or maybe both. And for those who think I did point a finger, I get why you're upset. If the situation was reversed, there was a good chance. I'd have felt the same way. Yeah, so just really

emotional from Kimmel. For me, who's watched these late night shows forever, you know, whenever you see anybody get emotional, these hosts who are pretty stoic and always very light and funny, clearly it's a big moment. And, you know, I do feel like Kimmel met that moment. But of course, you know, everyone's entitled to their own opinion with that and love to hear how you, what you thought of how Kimmel addressed those comments and he's going to go on to say that violence is not a solution ever and mentions the threats that him and his family do get as well for the things that he says and he knows those threats don't come from the kind of people on the right that he knows and loves so yeah just really good you know balancing of course between

you know the comedy of the situation of him getting suspended but also how serious you know the situation was and what was said and how people felt about it and how he addressed it so So, yeah, really good stuff there from Kimmel. He's going to go on and talk about, you know, how un-American it is for the government to start to begin to regulate television as, you know, what people assume happened with Colbert and what we were seeing here with Kimmel in this fashion. And he has, I think, a pretty good line about that. Should the government be allowed to regulate which podcasts, the cell phone companies and Wi-Fi providers, are allowed to. to let you download to make sure they serve the public interest? Do you think that sounds crazy?

I sure hope not. No, don't start looking at the podcast. But I thought that was a funny clip to play. And then we will go, you know, as he's going on, by the way, this is like I said, like an 18-minute monologue. So look really long, really detailed stuff that he's going on here. And clearly, like, everyone just wants to hear what he's going to say. So he goes from the comedy to the emotion.

And then he's going to have this moment here, which I also think. thought was a really triumphant moment for him. He's going to start by playing a clip of what President Trump said about Kimmel, and he's going to respond to that. Clearly, the talent he had no, because a lot of people have no talent to get ratings, but he had no ratings. Well, I do tonight. And to me, like, I think that that moment, like, of course,

the Jack Parr quote was fantastic, him addressing with all the emotion, I think that's those things they're going to get played. But just that moment of like, well, I do tonight. I think that's the thing that a lot of people are going to remember from this night and late night TV, his response to that. And he's going to continue and say, you know, he tried to get our show canceled, but instead he got millions of people to watch me. And yeah, he's going to conclude basically this monologue and say that we're at least encouraged that people speak out 10 times as loud as Trump continues to go after the late night host, referencing the post on truth social about taking down Seth and Fallon as well. So overall, you know, Kimmel really thankful for everyone who supported him to get

his show back on the air. And this monologue, it's just, it's something that though we played some clips here and we talked about it, you really have to go back and watch that one. I encourage it, even if you've been out of the late night sphere for a while, like go back, watch this one, just one of the iconic nights in late night television with Kimmel returning to the show. He's going to go to commercial. He'll come back. Sidekick Guillermo's there, says the world needs more people like Jimmy Kimmel. They have like a really nice moment where they get, they hug. And then they're going to go to this bit where Kimmel is going to reach out to Chairman Brendan Carr to speak to him on air. And instead, when he calls, he finds the new head of

the SEC who is played by Robert De Niro. And it's this amazing moment where they have this back and forth between DeNiro and Kimmel as De Niro is playing him like, you know, you can't say everything that you want to say. And that speech, it ain't free no more. charging by the word now. So here's a bit between Kimmel and De Niro that we saw last night that you really have to go see. Well, pardon me for saying so. Maybe you're the wrong guy to talk to, but it seems like the FCC is using mob tactics to suppress free speech. What the what did you just say to me?

I didn't mean any of tense. You know, you can't curse or we'll get fine by the FCC. I am the fucking FCC. I can say whatever the fucking I want. Yeah, just amazing stuff there from De Niro and Kimmel. Like a really, really good late night moment from this year when you go and you watch that clip. Just great. Robert De Niro, 82 years old, still has it and has a long history with Kimmel and

being on a show. I go back and I think about in 2017, they did a special edition of mean tweets for Robert DeNiro. Like, he's been a good buddy of Kimmel's for a while. So great stuff there from Robert DeNiro. On the show itself, we have Glenn Powell, who yesterday we talked about was supposed to be on the show on Monday night, was preempted and now, now was on the show on Tuesday night. So we get to see Glenn Powell, who was there to promote his new show, which is the

Eli Manning football show, where he dressed as Chad Powers, a football player who was a walk-on at the, what was said, at Penn State, where he was pretending to be a football player, like, in disguise, and, you know, we'll open up that interview, and Glenn Powell will say, we'll talk to Kimmel, and Kim will say, like, I'm really sorry to pull you all into this, and that, he's happy to be back. So there's a nice little moment at the start of that interview between Glenn Powell and Jimmy Kimmel. And he's going to explain about the movie and promoted, which I'm

really excited to go watch the Chad Powers movie. And also, a nice moment from Glenn Powell talking about how he's still taking classes at the University of Texas and being a Texas Longhorn fan. So that's great. Then we get some music from Sarah McLaughlin, who's there. No, I will remember you because the show's still on.

But we get a song better broken from Sarah McLaughlin. And that will wrap up the night for Kimmel. So Kimmel is clearly the biggest story late night last night. So the, you know, that's the show. I think that if you're going to go and watch one thing, you want to go see that. Other shows that did address the Kimmel situation will go over to Fallon, where after having a cold open bit with a special guest appearance from Rosey who talks about singing Appet and, you know, that being stuck in his head. So there's like a fun pop culture bit there. Rose is fourth time on the tonight show, including her time with

Black Pink. we're then going to get to the monologue, where Fallon's going to come on and say this. And if you're tuning in to see what I'll say about my suspension in the last couple of days. Again, you're watching the wrong Jimmy, Dad. The other Jimmy, Dad. Yeah, so Fallon didn't address too much Kimmel stuff the night before, but tonight he did have that to open up the show and in the promo for Fallon. We get that.

He's going to make a lot of jokes about Trump's speech at the UN, which is a major subject of the night. across all the shows. Then he's going to have a very funny bit about what if the K-pop Demon Hunter song, Golden, which is the most popular song in the country right now, was used for the Golden Bachelor, season two, premiering in a few days, ironically on ABC, but still doing some promo there. And then he's going to talk about getting to ring the opening bell at the NASDAQ, at NASDAQ earlier in the day, and then explains his new show on brand, which is airing Tuesday and Friday next week. So yeah, that's definitely something we'll be talking about next week

that we see from Fallon, and I'm sure there's going to be a lot of articles written about the premiere of his new show. Really interesting interviews from Fallon last night, where Fallon is going to be interviewing the cast of one battle after another. And I had assumed that this was going to be them appearing, like, on the couch next to Fallon. But instead, this is actually a pre-recorded interview that we see where Fallon does it remote at the Regal Theater in Union Square, where he's interviewing Leonardo DiCaprio, Tiana Taylor, Regina Hall, and Benicio Del Toro. And it is, like, fascinating just logistically because it's not something we typically see

from Fallon where he's going to do these remote interviews I think back to times where like him and Michael Strahan would go around New York or he would go places with other guests around and do remote interviews but typically when Fallon does interview even one two, three, four people like he'll have

them at the show. So I just thought that was pretty unique. I think it was recorded a few days ago and those were the main headlining guests of the show here. Leonardo DiCaprio, Big Gat again for Fallon. We talked yesterday about him having Sean Penn on the show. So really high-profile guests that we're having here on Fallon.

He's also going to have former S&L cast member, Kate McKinnon, on the show last night. Kate will talk a little bit about her appearance in SNL-50, the Anniversary Special, where she did an incredible version of her alien sketch, your close encounter as one, where she tells the story about how that was put together and was asked, like, oh, who would you want to appear in the close encounter sketch? And she was like, I don't know, maybe like Meryl Streep. And then a few days later, they're like, okay, so Meryl's in. And then she had to call Meryl Streep and have this conversation.

And Meryl says, like, oh, I have the perfect wig for this sketch. And of course, Meryl Streep had never appeared on Saturday Night Live officially before this. So she's like, Kate's like, no, no, I think the apartment will take care of the wig. It's a really good story. And she's promoting her new book, the Millicent Quib School of Etiquette for Young Ladies of Mad Science, The Secrets of the Purple. Pearl and yeah, Kate just always fantastic on there. She's going to bring

some vegetables and she actually hid some eggplants under some chairs in the audience, which I guess some of the viewing audience got to take home from the day. We're also going to see a game of charades where Kate and special guest Rosey are there to play with Jimmy

and Tarek. So that's the big game of the night. And then we also get a stand-up performance from Ian Lara as well to conclude Balance show last night. So that is, you know, it's a big show for Fallon that he had there last night as well. The other late night host that addressed the Kimmel news

was obviously Stephen Colbert. He's the one who has been, you know, hand in hand with Kimmel talking about everything that's been going on over the last few weeks, and he's going to open up his show by saying this. I just want to start off. You know, I'm so grateful to have this show. I'm going to say thanks to everybody in here

and and to everybody watching from home who I think might just be my wife Evie because everybody else probably watching ABC because tonight Jimmy Kimmel returned to the airways

and it's just so interesting like you think like naturally they're all friends they're going to address this I mean how can you not address this with everything that's been going on but it's just interesting that both Fallon makes a joke about how you're watching the wrong you're watching the wrong Jimmy and then

Colbert sort of says like you shouldn't be really watching me right now I mean Kimmel Colbert and Fallon all airing at the same time So they're both sending viewers over to ABC if they aren't watching already. So I just thought that was a really fascinating moment in the night. He's going to talk more about Trump's trip to the U.N., again, a big theme for last night. And then he has a pretty good joke about what a Republican senator said about Trump's Tylenol claims. If you miss that over the last few days, Trump had a press conference with RFK Jr.

And just talking about the effects of Tylenol and could it be giving autism to pregnant, women's kids, the future kids, and it was, like, a big deal in the news, and he's going to say this. Now, listen, I'm not a doctor, but you know who is Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, who posted this about the Tylenol claims. The preponderance of evidence shows that this is not the case. Uh-oh. I think Bill Cassidy just lost his late-night talk show. Yeah, good meta-reference there from Colbert. His guests for the night, we got Governor Gavin Newsom, who's actually making his first appearance on the late show with Stephen Colbert. He's appeared three times on Seth's show, and he actually did speak to Colbert back in the day on the Colbert report.

And they start their interview. They both say that they really wish that they were on Kimmel tonight, which is a fun exchange. And then, you know, Newsom's going to talk about the, you know, his, how he tends to troll Republicans with means of himself. He's going to show a shirt and other, you know, him being on Mount Rushmore and all of that. And then gets a little bit serious and talks about how he fears that there won't be an election in 2028. So if you are interested to go back and check that out, very interesting stuff there from Newsom. And then we're going to have Priscilla Presley on the show, the former wife of Elvis, who has a memoir out softly as I leave you. It's her first time on the show.

She hasn't been on late night, I think, in a very long time. But she's just has a really, really beautiful interview with Colbert, you know, talking about the memoir a little bit, her life with Elvis, and then how she appeared in the naked gun films and working with Leslie Nielsen. And so I just thought that was a really, really cool moment that, you know, probably won't get a lot of press because of everything that was going on with Kimmel. But I just thought that that was, like, awesome to have Priscilla Presley on last night if you get a chance to go back and listen to that interview. Over at the Daily Show, we got Jordan Klepper hosting today. He's hosting for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of this week. A lot of talk about the rapture that Colvair was referencing the day before. He talks about rapture talk on TikTok and then, you know, Trump on Tylenol.

And, of course, it can only good happen, which. was a big, you know, Trump quote over the last few days. There is a very funny bit with the other correspondence where Michael Costa is going to appear live from the White House, but he's, you know, there to talk about what's going on in politics, but he actually hasn't done any research, but because of the rapture, so he, like, didn't need to, and then he's going to disappear slowly. Desi Lideck's going to be at the CDC, and then we're going to see her, and she slowly disappears eventually.

And then newer correspondent, Josh Johnson, is at the Tylenol corporate headquarters, and he's waiting to see if he's going to get raptured, but he's actually not getting raptured. He's disappearing because his mom took Tylenol when she was. pregnant with him. So great stuff. We also see New York Times bestseller John Fuglesang as the guest on The Daily Show last night. He's the host of Tell Me Everything on Sirius XM. He's going to talk about the relationship between Christianity and authoritarianism. And it's a nice interview there between Jordan and John at The Daily Show. Over at Late Night with Seth Myers, our final show of the night. We see this show, which was filmed on Monday. So typically Seth's show will film two shows

on Monday, the Monday show and the Tuesday show. And he's going to be there. doing a short monologue before he transitions over to what I think is my favorite Seth Meyer's bit, day drinking. I absolutely love this. If you haven't gone back and watched some of the day drinking bits that Seth has done over the years with Rihanna, there's like so many good ones. Paul Rudd recently was fantastic. There's just a bunch. And he's going to have Lost Cultureista's hosts and, of course, I'm a cast member of Bowen Yang with Matt Rogers on day drinking. And I just love it because, you know, Seth, he can get serious sometimes, but also.

I love how he gets loose when he's drinking and having fun with the guests. And there's a really great moment among some of the games that they're playing where Seth's going to put on a tank top. And then Matt and Bowen are going to admire his triceps. And then Donna Richards is going to come in, who famously, if you ever watch Saturday Night, Shepard's around the S&L hosts and you see Donna on screen a lot who's going to bring a jacket over to Seth Myers. So that's a really, really funny moment there as a part of day drinking.

Bobby Conavale is the main guest on late night last night. uh he's back on broadway with art uh one of his broadway uh the broadway play and then this is his fourth time on set he tells a very cool story about james gandalfini having a vespah and how bobby used to write on them with his celebrity friends through new york city uh so that's a good one there and then lola young second night in a row that we're going to see a younger musician appear on seth's show where seth is going to talk to lola who actually previously performed her song messy on phallon in january this is the song that really blew up for her but it's her third album that she's promoting now and she's going to speak about how

Elton John invited her over for brunch and approved of her in her music. So yeah, just a nice interview from Lola Young and very cool for Seth to give some opportunities for some of these younger artists to get to speak on the show. So overall, last night I mean, a lot of great moments throughout

the late night sphere. I think that the Kimmel moment clearly will be the most important moment from late night last night. The entire 18 minute monologue, the whole bit with Robert De Niro. These are things that I think people will remember for years to come,

however long all of these shows are airing. And I just think that if you're going to go and search some of those moments from late night last night, that is where you should start. You should start with all of those Kimmel moments, as I'm sure that every show in America is addressing and talking about what Kimmel set on Late Night TV last night. So I hope you enjoy our discussion of late night

from Tuesday, September 23rd. Of course, we want to know what you think. so you can write your comments on the YouTube video. If you're watching us on our late-nighter YouTube channel, you can also subscribe to our late-nighter podcast network feed where we have these shows happening every weekday to talk about what happened on late-night last night, as well as our interviews with late-night guests

and important people from late-night history. That is the Inside Late Night with Mark Malkov podcast, and we have an interview with Wyatt Sennak out right now. So you can go and check that one out and more fun things to come throughout the entire fall. Of course, we want to know what you think. Like, like I said, let us know, subscribe to the podcast. Appreciate everybody supporting us here on Late Nader as we continue our podcasting journey.

But on behalf of everybody here at LightNiter, my name is John Schneider, and we will see you tomorrow for some more late night last night.