On Monday, Jimmy Kimmel celebrated the end of the Suez Canal blockage during his opening monologue by joking that the whole thing was basically “capitalism had a heart attack” and wondering how the hell it happened in the first place.
“I have to say — after all the fighting and the tooth-gnashing over the past few years – it was nice to see the whole world come together to make fun of a boat,” Kimmel said as he got into the joke.
“The container ship – known as the Ever Given — was wedged in the Suez Canal for the last six days — it was finally freed this morning by a fleet of tug boats. Same way they got Trump out of the White House,” Kimmel continued.
Kimmel then described how the canal, “one of the main arteries for ships carrying goods around the globe,” ended up being “completely blocked by this ship. Basically, capitalism had a heart attack over this last week,” he joked.
Kimmel joked that the delivery delays caused by the canal blockage caused all sort of problems, for instance Ikea had a lot of products suck in transit. “Which means thousands of men in their twenties now have an excuse for why they don’t own a headboard,” said Kimmel.
“But still, it’s crazy that something like this can bring the world of commerce to a halt,” Kimmel said, later adding “if this was a urethra — they’d have to operate.”
“They’re still investigating how this happened,” he said, concluding the gag. The shipping company is blaming a strong gust of wind. Which, don’t know. They finished this canal in 1869. In 150 years, this is the first time they had wind?”
Watch the whole monologue above. Kimmel’s canal jokes happen at the very beginning.