Jimmy Kimmel Channels Late-Night Legend’s Defiant Comeback Line — 65 Years Later

Jimmy Kimmel opened his return to Jimmy Kimmel Live! with a line ripped from late-night lore, staring into the camera after nearly a week off the air and borrowing another host’s defiant comeback.

As the boisterous audience cheers settled Tuesday night, Kimmel began: “As I was saying before I was interrupted…”

The move was a deliberate echo of Jack Paar, the mercurial host who — while on air —dramatically quit NBC’s Tonight Show in 1960 after network censors cut one of his jokes about a bathroom.

Paar stunned the country with his walk-off, declaring: “There must be a better way of making a living than this.”

When NBC coaxed him back seven weeks later, Paar reclaimed his desk with the same words Kimmel opened with Tuesday.

Paar went on to repeat his parting words from his last show weeks earlier, asking aloud if there was “a better way of making a living than this” before adding the immortal kicker: “I’ve looked, and there isn’t.”

Kimmel’s borrowed remark came after a brief suspension by ABC following backlash to a line about MAGA in the wake of conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

The comments were then highlighted by Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr on a podcast last week and triggered a pile-on by affiliate conglomerates before ABC ousted Kimmel.

Watch above via ABC.