If you watched Season 4 of HBO Max’s “Hacks,” you probably remember real late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s uproarious cameo. As it turns out, Kimmel, who appears in the season’s fifth episode, “Clickable Face,” came up with one of his best on-screen jokes.

Speaking to USA Today, “Hacks” star Jean Smart said, “My hat is off to [Kimmel], because he kept saying, ‘I’m not an actor, you guys. Don’t expect much.’ He was kind of nervous, and then he was just a riot.” So which joke did Kimmel come up with on the spot? First, some important context: Desperate to keep her ailing new late-night show afloat, Smart’s Deborah Vance basically stalks Kristen Bell (who also hilariously plays herself) and begs her to appear on her show. The problem? Bell is previously committed to “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” This all leads to a confrontation in a Hollywood parking lot between the imperious Deborah and Kimmel, who plays a particularly cutthroat and funny version of himself.

“K.B.’s not doing your show,” Kimmel tells Deborah of Bell. “Don’t play dumb. Kristen Bell. Everyone knows that when she has a new project, she does my show first. I got full custody when Conan (O’Brien) died.” Showrunner Paul W. Downs, who also plays Deborah and Ava’s (Hannah Einbinder) shared and beleaguered manager Jimmy LuSaque Jr., told USA Today the quip was a Kimmel original. Kimmel apparently also came up with a pretty vulgar joke about his fellow late-night Jimmy — Fallon, that is — and Downs won’t take credit for that. “We would never,” he said, laughing.
The entire spiel from this fictionalized “Jimmy Kimmel” about the lengths he’ll go to to secure a booking also is extraordinarily funny. He says he switched over to an Android phone so Kristen Bell wouldn’t feel less alone texting with “green bubbles,” and invested a considerable amount of money in “her gluten-free energy bars for Africa or something.” Kimmel later tells Deborah Vance that “The Late Late Show with James Corden,” which ended in real life in 2023, ended within the “Hacks” universe because Corden “got a little too friendly with Jennifer Aniston” and “had to move back to England” after some disturbing and illicit materials apparently appeared on his computer.

During an appearance from Jean Smart on the real “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” Kimmel admitted that he was incredibly nervous and “didn’t memorize any of [his] lines beforehand, which you’re supposed to do, it turns out.” Smart generously said he was “ad-libbing,” while Kimmel said that he was “forgetting the lines.” Weirdly, though, “Hacks” made an accidental prediction about Kimmel’s late-night career.

In the penultimate Season 4 episode of “Hacks,” Deborah is told that she has to fire Ava as the head writer of her late-night show. The network wants Ethan Sommers (Eric Balfour), a fictional movie star with a nasty reputation, to appear on Deborah’s show, and Ava complains about it to a former colleague who works at a political talk show. After the network’s head, Bob Lipka (Tony Goldwyn), rages at Deborah about her head writer airing the show’s dirty laundry to a journalist, which Ava admits to doing, Deborah has to make a choice: Does she stand by Ava and give up the show, or forsake Ava and keep the late-night gig she’s wanted for her entire career as a comedian?

Deborah chooses Ava and announces to a shocked audience that she won’t give in to the network’s demands. “A few days ago, I agreed to cut a joke I made to protect Ethan Sommers and the studio’s interests,” Deborah tells the audience. “And now I’m being asked to fire someone I love who did nothing wrong. So what will they ask of me next? Where’s the line? Well, for me, it’s here, right now. Which is why tonight will be my last show.”

Similarly, in September 2025, Kimmel’s show was briefly taken off the air after outcry from Republicans over comments he made related to the killing of Charlie Kirk. Censorship and late-night shows have a historically fraught relationship, and it’s strange that “Hacks” saw this coming for Kimmel … sort of.