Michael posted a review of the Letterman, Leno and Conan late night shows earlier, and I thought I’d throw in my two cents about Jimmy Kimmel Live last night.

I named Kimmel as my favorite late show of 2007, and for good reason. However, it’s pretty apparent now that a lot of that credit is due to his writers. I don’t know if it was that he was intentionally sucking to prove a point, or if he is just not that good without his writers. Lord, I hope it’s the first one.

In lieu of a traditional, stand-up monologue, Jimmy did the whole show from his desk. After a few minutes of half-heartedly trying to explain the strike, he talked about what he did for Christmas and New Years. And, while some of his jokes were somewhat funny, the only laughter coming from the audience seemed to be pity laughs. It was all quite awkward.

One thing I did like, however, were the little flashback segments, entitled “GREAT MOMENTS, for which residual payments are made to our unemployed writers”. I laughed harder at that title than I did at any other part of the show.

Anyway, after the equally-awkward Helio Castroneves interview was over, I switched over to Conan just in time to see him playing Rock Band. Now that was funny.