Late-Night Hosts Have Fun With Trump's "Fake News Awards"
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Jimmy Kimmel presented an award to CNN's "Wolf Blitzer," Stephen Colbert pretended he went home with hardware, and Samantha Bee made fun of the GOP's internet troubles.
Over the last few weeks, late-night shows have rolled out impressive awards campaigns for the "Fake News Awards" that President Donald Trump doled out on Wednesday night. Trump ultimately didn't give any laurels to late night on Wednesday — but that didn't stop the hosts from having fun with the proceedings.
On Jimmy Kimmel Live!, host Jimmy Kimmel handed out a Donald Trump "Fake News Award" to CNN host "Wolf Blitzer." (In reality, CNN won four of Trump's awards, but Blitzer won none; and in Kimmel's spoof of the ceremony, Blitzer was played by Kimmel's father.)
"Thanks, Jimmy, I have so many people to acknowledge," the pseudo-anchor said. "First I want to thank our fake-news writers, who brilliantly made our bullshit all year long. I want to thank our special-effects team, who made it look like the president threw paper towels at Puerto Ricans. And, most importantly, I want to thank President Trump for this trophy of a child's fist giving the middle finger." ("Wolf" pointed out that his golden award was a fist showing only its middle finger.)
Kimmel, pointing out that "Wolf" wasn't even the real Wolf Blitzer, said that everything about the acceptance speech was fake. He was interrupted, however, by "Rachel Maddow" (played by Kimmel's mother), who offered "Wolf" some mini muffins.
"Come on, Rachel, let's go home and howl at the wolves," the false CNN anchor said at the end of his speech.
Over on the Late Show, Colbert opened his show by announcing, “I am proud to say, The Late Show won Fakest in Late Night.” Colbert then congratulated his staff and received a standing ovation from his audience. However, Colbert may have been a bit misleading: “I would say I’m humbled, but I think we deserve it because I’m lying right now. We didn’t win.”
Late-night hosts also poked fun at the awards online earlier on Wednesday when Trump didn't announce them at the previously appointed time of 2 p.m. PT.
The Daily Show host Trevor Noah tweeted, "Wait, what if the 'Fake News' Awards are actually the 'Fake' News Awards? #FakeNewsAwards" and "Make America Wait Again #TheFakies #FakeNewsAwards."
"It's 5:00pm. Do you know where your fake awards are?" Full Frontal's Samantha Bee tweeted.
When Trump finally unveiled the awards at 5 p.m. PT, he linked to a crashed site, prompting Noah to tweet, "404s & Heartbreak," while Samantha Bee added a "Sad!" to the end of a screenshot of the crashed GOP website.
Late-night hosts' interest in the ceremony began almost immediately after Trump tweeted, "I will be announcing THE MOST DISHONEST & CORRUPT MEDIA AWARDS OF THE YEAR on Monday at 5:00 o’clock" on Jan. 2, promising that categories would include "Dishonesty & Bad Reporting." (Later that week, Trump delayed the date of the awards to Jan. 17, explaining, "The interest in, and importance of, these awards is far greater than anyone could have anticipated!")
Just a day later, hosts Colbert, Noah and Bee debuted posters advertising themselves as potential winners, complete with critics' quotes. Spoofing Oscars, Golden Globes and Emmys campaigning techniques, Colbert took out a billboard in Times Square. Late-night hosts even made up categories, with Bee campaigning for "Shrillest Reporting," while Colbert asked to be considered for "Fakest Dishonesty," "Dishonestest Corruption" and "Smallest Button."
Jimmy Kimmel Stephen Colbert Samantha BeeRead the full article – Hollywoodreporter.com
