The War for Late Night_ When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy - Bill Carter [71]
The Davies connection came into play again two years later when Kimmel and his pal Adam Carolla devised a show aimed to be “the anti-Oprah.” Kimmel had been told by a producer that he would never appeal to women, so he and Carolla, another radio-based comic, planned a show to appeal to the most basic (and debased) instincts of guys. Davies loved The Man Show and pushed it to the ABC programming division. But the network was appalled. “It was the most poorly received pilot ever,” Davies recalled.
Given the British executive’s classy deportment and accent—not to mention suits—his advocacy for this project, as well as for an apparently rude character like Kimmel, may have seemed unexpected. But Davies, who went on to import and then produce for ABC the biggest game-show hit of all time, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, simply got Kimmel. Once The Man Show was on Comedy Central and a hit, he never lost contact with his discovery, and that connection would pay off again, bigger than ever, for Jimmy.
In the meantime Kimmel climbed another step up on his own. Playing off his sports-guy persona on K-Rock, Kimmel worked a deal with Fox Sports to provide a comedy sketch for the network’s pregame show every Sunday. While making half-serious picks on the games, Kimmel found ways to tweak both the NFL and the roundtable of ex-jocks that populated the show. The bumptious crew, led by Terry Bradshaw, quickly came to sneer at Kimmel’s weekly presence, but the quarter hour when he appeared demonstrated a clear ratings uptick.
Kimmel, whose deal with Fox was freelance, got a call out of the blue from CBS Sports, the other network with a Sunday NFL show. Surprised but intrigued, Kimmel quietly flew to New York to meet with Sean McManus, the president of the division. McManus, son of the legendary ABC sportscaster Jim McKay, pitched Jimmy hard about coming on as a regular on The NFL Today. When Kimmel got back to LA, still mulling the CBS offer, Leslie Moonves, the capo of capos at CBS, asked to meet with him, a gesture that signaled an overture of real substance. After explaining how ardently CBS wanted him for the football package, and all the great things Jimmy could do on the Sunday football show, Les, who had clearly done his homework, came at Kimmel in the place where his deepest dreams resided.
“I know you love Letterman,” Moonves told Jimmy, surprising him with that little bit of research. “Maybe we could put something else on the table for you down the road.”
Moonves told Kimmel that he didn’t much like what Craig Kilborn was doing in the 12:35 show. (Moonves seemed to have a different take on late-night talent than the experts at Worldwide Pants.) He tried to tempt Kimmel by suggesting that Kilborn was not going to be around forever. And if Jimmy was in the CBS family when that 12:35 show opened up, it would certainly be something Les and the network would consider for Jimmy.
If Moonves meant to flatter Kimmel, he succeeded—maybe a little too well. Kimmel had a lifetime of reasons to want to be in the CBS lineup behind Letterman. Instead, the gauzy promise that Moonves had floated failed to send even a shiver of anticipation up his spine. To the contrary, here he was, a total stranger to CBS, and the network boss had a plan that sounded like he was taking candy away from one baby and offering it to another. Something about it put Kimmel off, and he declined.
A few other offers drifted in: the funny neighbor/boyfriend/bartender