The Return of Martin Short’s Jiminy Glick Will Save Us All

30/06/2024

Photo Illustration by Erin O’Flynn/The Daily Beast/Jimmy Kimmel Live/YouTube and Getty Images

This week:

The Bear is back.
Jiminy Glick is back.
Lucky Spencer is back.
David Archuleta is back.
Utter confusion is back.

Finally, a Good Laugh

There’s nothing better than laughing so hard that you feel like you’re screaming, you’re running out of breath, and tears start falling. The best is when, after, you say out loud, “I haven’t laughed this hard in such a long time.”

And for that, I thank Martin Short.

This week, Short resurfaced his iconic interviewer character, Jiminy Glick. I have to reiterate: I haven’t laughed this hard in such a long time.

Glick began as a recurring character on 1999’s The Martin Short Show before gaining the spotlight in his own 2001 series, Primetime Glick. The gimmick is that Short-as-Glick, in a fat suit and prosthetics, was both boorish and utterly silly as he interviewed celebrities “expecting” a normal junket interview. He’d ask ludicrous questions, slyly insult them, and, often, chow down on a tower of donuts in the middle of conversations.

This week, Short revived Glick in interviews with Bill Hader, Sean Hayes, and Melissa McCarthy. The shade on their careers were as hilarious as the random questions he’d interject—“Were you for or against drones to take out the late Mickey Rooney?”—and otherwise left-turn statements: “So Willie Mays just died…”

None of the celebs being interviewed could keep a straight face, and neither could I. What stuck out to me, though, is how perfect a counter-argument these segments are to those crotchety comedians who say “you can’t be funny anymore” because everything is too woke and people are too sensitive.

This is a character who, truly, should be canceled; Jiminy Glick is very much a byproduct of the Y2K era where “guy in a fatsuit” constituted the funniest joke anyone could imagine.

But here Short is as Glick, still in the fatsuit, delivering some of the edgiest lines any comedian has given in recent years, and earning the laughs because they have a point of view and a perspective on the cultural attitudes of the current moment. Case in point: a man, again, wearing a fatsuit, making gay jokes to Sean Hayes. But they are smart. They are evolved. They are still crude and ribald, but reflect evolved taste.

Anyway, watch them for yourselves for a good time this weekend.

Bill Hader, watch here.

Sean Hayes, watch here.

Melissa McCarthy, watch here.

A Huge Return

Sometimes, there is entertainment news that is absolutely seismic to a certain segment of people, while probably not registering to most of the population.

The announcement that Jonathan Jackson is returning to the soap opera General Hospital to play Lucky Spencer is to many people—including my mother, my Aunt Ruthie, and myself—the equivalent of a 6.1 on the Richter scale.

Jonathan Jackson ABC

I grew up in a household where I knew who Luke, Laura, Sonny, and Carly were before I knew about John, Paul, George, and Ringo. General Hospital was foundational to my upbringing, and, if I’m being honest, Jackson’s Lucky was a start of my sexual awakening. (Kudos to him and Boy Meets World’s Rider Strong.)

This is such a fun update for the long-running show, and I apologize to my bosses in advance for being absent every day from 3-4 pm when his comeback starts.

How Old Am I?

I have vivid memories of David Archuleta performing on American Idol, and have read over the years about his journey coming out and how difficult it was because of his Mormon upbringing.

Those Idol days seem like a million years ago, yet seeing the videos of him performing the Song of the Moment, Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso,” made me feel like it was just yesterday. Such a wild confluence of pop-culture time periods. (Also, the performance is great. Watch it here.)

Huh?

The world is such that, by this point, any random Mad Libs of names in a headline should be greeted with a shrug. Still, this one made me wonder if I had somehow woken up in the middle of a melatonin-induced fever dream and started reading the news.

Screenshot

What in the world?

More From The Daily Beast’s Obsessed:

People thought the presidential debate was so stressful that they turned it off to watch The Bear…famously TV’s most stressful show. Read more.

Everyone hates this House of the Dragon character so much that the actor playing him had to turn off his social media mentions. Read more.

If you’re ever having a bad day, I highly recommend you talk with June Squibb about becoming an action hero at age 94. Read more.

What to watch this week:

Last Summer: The hottest movie of the summer also happens to be sorta incestuous. (Now in theaters)

Family Affair: Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron are an absurdly sexy pair. (Now on Netflix)

A Quiet Place: Day One: Lupita Nyong’o is the best part. (Of the movie... Of everything…) (Now in theaters)

What to skip this week:

Horizon: An American Saga: A three-hour Kevin Costner horse movie. If that’s for you…God bless. (Now in theaters)