For Brooklyn native Jimmy Kimmel, coming home for a week of shows has brought the refreshing hot blast of New Yorkers’ particular brand of abusive hospitality along with a parade of New York-based guests. Calling New York essentially “the original Twitter,” in that “people feel comfortable yelling at each other on the street,” Kimmel cut to one recent viral example of same, showing the heavily-memed clip of that blaring, abusive little motormouth who decided to rail against all women at a local bagel establishment just because they inexplicably don’t want to date a bullying, self-aggrandizing little creep whose hobby is apparently filming himself making other New Yorkers’ days miserable via hectoring, sometimes racist rants.
One might ask why Kimmel then spent some 11 minutes, several on-location spots (including a testimonial from Sugar Ray Leonard, for some reason), one photoshopped poster for a fake Broadway musical about said embodiment of entitled white male inadequacy, multiple costume changes, and, finally, a lavishly expensive-looking full-on musical number about that time a jerk got his ass beat in a bagel store. Well, blowing up insignificant viral nonsense for outsized comedy bits is sort of a late-night staple, for one thing. For another, maybe longtime Broadway musical star Jason Alexander had some free time and/or some leftover George Costanza impotent rage to let out. And at least some of New York’s always-scrambling musical theater actors got to put “played singing, dancing bagel” and “stilt-walking” on their résumés.
But no oversized piece of Brooklyn lunacy would be complete without Kimmel’s pal Tracy Morgan, who, upon Alexander’s runty loudmouth’s self-pitying cry of exhibitionist despair over his short stature, appeared on high in the Brooklyn Academy Of Music rafters—as God. (It makes a certain amount of sense, considering the state of things.) Sprinkling confetti and sporting the requisite glorious silver wig, Morgan’s disdainful deity granted Alexander’s jackass his greatest wish (via a nifty pair of hydraulic stage pants) although not before echoing the thoughts of everyone everywhere by belowing, “Quit your bitching, Pee Wee. I can’t take your bagel bullshit any more.”