Stephen Colbert Bequeaths his Iran War Jokes to Jimmy Kimmel

The timeline for the war in Iran keeps shifting, and Stephen Colbert believes it will now extend well past the date of his last show. So what is a girl to do with all these Strait of Hormuz punchlines lying around the apartment? Pay them forward. In Wednesday night’s monologue, Colbert jokingly made plans to forward all his unused Iran War jokes to Jimmy Kimmel. The late night host instincts don’t go away just because the show is over. Jay Leno is still working as close to nightly as he can. And Johnny Carson used to submit jokes to David Letterman.

It’s an interesting choice, passing the bits along to Kimmel. Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, and John Oliver all live closer. He’d save on shipping bequeathing the jokes to them. But Kimmel has become the face of late night resistance, ever since the FCC tried to get him permanently taken off the air last year. Kimmel’s audience has even started chanting his name à la the cries of “Ste-PHEN, Ste-PHEN, Ste-PHEN!” that have filled the Ed Sullivan theater since 2016.