Stephen Colbert mocked Disney hard for suspending Jimmy Kimmel on Thursday’s “The Late Show.” His monologue, of course, included bon mots like the observation that the suspension “proves Disney is #1 in streaming,” because company leaders were “pissing themselves” in fear of Trump.
But before the monologue, Colbert began Thursday’s episode with a cold open that went almost as hard by channeling “Beauty and the Beast.”
As always, the cold open started with a supercut of recent news reports, in this case explaining that Disney suspended Kimmel after being threatened by the head of the FCC over comments Kimmel made referencing the man who killed right wing influencer Charlie Kirk.
Then, the scene changed to feature a parody of Lumière, the French-accented candelabra voiced by Jerry Orbach in the 1991 animated Disney classic. Only this version is, somehow, wearing a MAGA hat.
“Listen up. In light of Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension, ABC’s parent company, the Walt Disney Corporation, has a little message for all the employees,” the parody Lumière said.
Then he began a parody of the breakout song “Be Our Guest,” called “Shut Your Trap.”
The lyrics were:
“Shut your trap, shut your trap, we are warning you to cut the crap. Our Dear Leader’s skin is thinner than a sheet of plastic wrap. Mum’s the word, have you heard, kissing ass it what’s preferred. Don’t insult our great dictator, or he’ll hit you with this turd. The new rule at ABC: Don’t make fun of Donny T. And don’t point out that his neck is mostly flap. So don’t you make a scene, or mention Jeff Epstein, or your show will be scrapped. Shut your trap.”
Watch the amusing bit below:
Kimmel was suspended on Wednesday by ABC in response to conservative outrage over comments he’d made in his monologue two days before about Tyler Robinson, the 22-year-old who murdered right wing influencer Charlie Kirk. Kimmel said, “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”
His assumption that Robinson was politically right wing was based on all available evidence made public by authorities as of Monday, when he made that comment. On Tuesday, more details came out that indicated the opposite may be true, and that Robinson may have also had personal motivations. Though there are still a lot of questions yet to be answered.
That context was ignored by conservative critics. So it is on Wednesday, FCC Chair Brendan Carr stoked outrage by threatening ABC and parent company Disney during a podcast appearance. Local TV powerhouses Nexstar and Sinclair then both pulled Kimmel from their ABC affiliates. ABC and Disney suspended the show “indefinitely” shortly after.