Jimmy Kimmel (born November 13, 1967), known simply as Jimmy Kimmel, is an American television talk-show host and comedian. He was born in Brooklyn, New York to devoutly Catholic parents who made sure that he served as an altar boy, but he grew up primarily in Las Vegas, Nevada. Kimmel is a big David Letterman fan. As a teenager, he threw Late Night parties and was known in high school as "the kid who liked David Letterman." Kimmel had planned on being an artist; but when he found out that Letterman started his career in radio, Kimmel decided to pursue a career in radio.
Kimmel began his radio career in Phoenix, Arizona by phoning in to Mike Elliot and Kent Voss, for the KZZP afternoon show. Then Kimmel worked at KZOK in Seattle, Washington with Kent Voss as co-host of The Me and Him Show. Kimmel was fired after ten months. After leaving Seattle, Kimmel got another radio job at WRBQ in Tampa, where he was also fired and then in Palm Springs, California at KCMJ-FM. In Palm Springs, Kimmel convinced Carson Daly to drop out of college and become his intern. Kimmel took a job at KRQ in Tucson, where he was once again fired. Kimmel went to the Kevin and Bean morning show at Los Angeles radio icon KROQ, where he was known as "Jimmy the Sports Guy" for five years.
Kimmel began his television career as the co-host of the game show Win Ben Stein's Money on Comedy Central in 1997, for which Kimmel won an Emmy. When he left, he was replaced by comedian Nancy Pimental and then Kimmel's cousin Sal Iacono. Kimmel served as the co-host and co-creator (with Adam Carolla and Daniel Kellison) of The Man Show from 1999 until 2003, when Kimmel left to do a talk show at ABC. Comedy Central continued the show with new hosts Joe Rogan and Doug Stanhope. The ratings plummeted with their departure, and The Man Show was cancelled after the first season with the new hosts. For four years, Kimmel served as on-air football prognosticator for FOX NFL Sunday. Kimmel and Carolla's success with The Man Show allowed them to create and produce another TV show named Crank Yankers for the Comedy Central cable network.
In January 2003, Kimmel made the leap to his own five-night-a-week talk show on a broadcast network called Jimmy Kimmel Live on ABC, which airs following Nightline. One of Kimmel's regular guests on the show, besides his uncle Frank and his cousin Sal, was Andy Milonakis, who now has his own show on MTV which was created by and is produced by Kimmel.
