Worst Late-Night Jokes for the Week of January 15, 2024

This week’s Iowa caucus dominated the news, giving the nation’s junior-high late-night hosts plenty of chances to remind us all what “caucus” sounds like. Jimmy Kimmel gets extra points for going with the unexpected but nearly as dirty “Cauc-ass.” Stephen Colbert went with the obvious dick joke: “Monday was expected to be the coldest caucus night weather since the modered nominating system began in 1972 and we all know sub-zero temperatures will definitely shrink your caucus.”

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Kimmel went in on Iowa for consecutive nights with essentially the same joke about Trump’s kids. On Tuesday, he landed this haymaker: “Trump won the caucus tiny-handily. You know, he barely spent any time in Iowa which somehow made voters love him more. It's the same strategy he used raising Eric and Don Jr.”

Then he followed up with the same joke construction a day later. After Trump said De Santis finished “a boring second” in Iowa, Kimmel joked, “A boring second. That’s also his nickname for Eric.” Who knew Iowa would be the place for Eric Trump to catch stray bullets? 

Speaking of repeating jokes, our late-night heroes can’t stop reminding us that a door flew off an Alaska Airlines plane. Even though the incident was beaten into the ground in last week’s monologues, Jimmy Fallon kept coming back for more: “This is exciting here in New York City. We just got our first real snowfall in almost two years. During the last two years, the only thing that fell from the sky was rain and a door from Alaska Airlines.”

Not to be outdone, Colbert recycled the punchline again. “There was chaos on an AirAsia flight in Thailand after a live snake was discovered by passengers in an overhead bin. Even worse, it was one of those planes where all the doors stay on.”

Why continue to beat the Alaska Airlines drum when late-night has an old favorite subject to return to -- the weather. “Eighty percent of the country right now is in the grip of what they call an Arctic blast, which is a very dangerous weather pattern,” joshed Kimmel. “Not to be confused with Arctic Blitz, which is a wiper-fluid colored flavor of Gatorade.”

That joke was a hall-of-famer compared to these frigid Fallon doozies:

• “Finally some snow. It’s about time. Last winter, I saw kids making a snowman out of some loose garbage.”
• “It’s so cold, Joe Biden’s teeth are chattering on his nightstand. It’s just...cold. Cold. Really cold. That’s his alarm clock. He sets it, his teeth chatter. That’s how he wakes up.”

What was the topic that all the late-night hosts agreed on this week? The winner was “having sex with your cousin,” thanks to a proposed law in Kentucky. The jokes practically wrote themselves:

• Meyers: “A state lawmaker in Kentucky recently introduced a new bill that would make it legal for a person to have sex with a first cousin, while Alabama is making it mandatory. I mean, I don't want to judge, but that just doesn't seem right.”
• Fallon: “Did you guys see this? A lawmaker in Kentucky introduced legislation to legalize marriage between first cousins. But later said it was a ‘mistake.’ Which can only mean one thing. His cousin broke it off. ‘I know it's going to break Uncle Daddy's heart, but I think we're better off as friends.’"
• Kimmel: “Kentucky lawmaker and former Survivor winner representative Nick Wilson has filed a bill that would remove the first cousin clause from Kentucky's incest law. House Bill 269 would remove first cousins from the list of familial relationships meaning it would no longer be illegal to have sexual contact with those family members. Look, the guy lives in a small town and he's got a very hot cousin. What are you going to do?”

Thanks to Colbert for keeping his cousin-sex opinions to himself.