People Actually Thought Jimmy Kimmel Was Fired in Tucker Carlson Bit

Somehow, this needed clarification: When ABC “fired” Jimmy Kimmel during his opening monologue in a Jimmy Kimmel Live! episode last month, Kimmel was making a joke. When Tucker Carlson was fired for being too racist for Fox News, that was just plain funny.

Click right here to get the best of Cracked sent to your inbox.

On April 24th, Kimmel took the stage on Jimmy Kimmel Live! to celebrate the conservative outlet’s decision to “sever bowties” with their biggest and most controversial star as well as to gawk at Don Lemon’s departure from CNN on the same day. The monologue was interrupted with a “breaking news” banner as Kimmel’s sidekick Guillermo read an announcement that ABC had decided to part ways with Kimmel.

Following the clear jab at cable news’ newly unemployed punching bags, the Disney blog InsideTheMagic.com published a post with the headline, “ABC Fires Jimmy Kimmel During ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live,’” using a good old-fashioned bait-and-switch to play along with the joke. Well, people on social media missed the punchline by a country mile, prompting the prominent fact-checkers at Snopes to put out possibly the most head-shaking elucidation we never thought we needed yesterday morning.

Nevertheless, the mass of people missing the joke did deliver some unintentional comedy that’s comfortably filling the void left by the late-night shows that are currently on hiatus due to the writers strike — here are the funniest posts in which Kimmel’s joke flew well over the heads of his haters.