Jimmy Kimmel thanks ‘Pumpkin McPornhumper’ Trump for his Peabody Award

“Jimmy Kimmel Live!” was one of 34 winners chosen by the Peabody Awards jury to win this year’s prizes, and Kimmel joked that he “never felt dumber” when he was rewarded alongside documentaries and news programs that exposed “the horrors of ice cream, prison abuse and a teacher who stood up to Putin.”

But the audience at Sunday night’s ceremony cheered when the talk show host reminded the crowd in his acceptance speech that “making jokes about the president — in America — shouldn’t win you any awards. We have the right, guaranteed by the Constitution, to criticize and excoriate our leaders. That’s a right I took for granted for the first 57 years of my life, until last September, when the FCC delivered an unpleasant surprise.”

Kimmel was honored for “embracing comedy’s responsibility to reveal truths amid political volatility,” especially after he was briefly suspended by ABC last fall following threats from the FCC.

When that happened, Kimmel said in his acceptance speech, “I experienced something even more surprising. I saw firsthand as millions of people, even some from across the aisle, objected. They spoke out, they marched, they canceled their subscriptions to ‘Star Wars,’ because they refused to allow our freedoms to be bulldozed like the East Wing of the White House.”

“They sent a message that we do care,” he added. “And that we will stand up. And that we will not stand by as comedy, journalism and dissent are censored, regulated and criminalized.”

Kimmel, of course, shared a few of his jokes that got under Trump’s skin: “I called our president ‘Fattyshack.’ And ‘Blob the Builder.’ And ‘Lie-ger Woods.’ And the ‘Hungry Hungry Hypocrite.’ ‘Our loving father.’ “Mar-a-Lardo.” ‘Nelson Tandela.’ And ‘Nostra-Dumbass.’ And somehow we got a Peabody out of it,” he joked. “This country has really gone to shit….We thank those who supported us last September. Thank you to the Peabody judges for this cute little trophy, and thank you to Donald Trump, our Commander in Chief, ‘Abrascam Lincoln,’ ‘Orange Julius Caesar,’ ‘Greedy McGolfy,’ ‘Dopey McGropey’ and ‘Pumpkin McPornhumper.'”

Kimmel, on stage with his sidekick Guillermo Rodriguez, received his award from Ben Affleck, who credited the host for showing us “what speaking truth to power really means. For years, he has used his show to challenge authority on a nightly basis – and by authority, I think we all know that means, one in particular, a credit-grubbing narcissist named Matt Damon!”

Kimmel was far from the only recipient to take on the government and other oppressive institutions — this is the 86th Peabody Awards, after all, and this year’s recipients focused on heavy, important topics, including the war on Gaza, the shocking state of prisons, the lack of any attempt to bring sensible gun regulation to the US, our failing medical system and so much more.

Entertainment Fare won 11 Peabody awards this year, including wins for “The Pitt,” “Adolescence,” “Heated Rivalry” and “Pluribus.” This was followed by a documentary with ten (two of which were under the arts banner) and five for news, four for interactive/immersive programming and three for podcasts/radio. Children/youth achieved one victory this year. Comedian Mo Amer hosted this year’s event, which took place Sunday at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel.

Amer noted some of the heavy topics: “This evening has everything from investigating war crimes in Gaza to ‘here’s Elmo!’ That usually doesn’t go together. “Today’s episode is brought to you with the letters I, D and F!” Seriously, tonight we honor ‘No Other Land’, ‘Cleared by Fire’, ‘Fault Lines: ‘Kids Under Fire’ and ‘The Disappearance of Dr. Abu Safiya’, ‘Investigating War Crimes in Gaza’ and ‘Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk’, all of which tell stories of the systematic destruction of Palestine. The producers told me to whisper that word because we don’t want anyone to get in trouble just for being honest.”

Producer Joseph Patel of “Sly Lives! (AKA the Burden of Black Genius)” accepted the doc award, as director Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson was still in New York, having just hit the stage with Jay-Z the night before. Patel said he would read from his phone instead of the teleprompter, but that also allowed him to go off script and issue a warning: “We’re grateful that we still have to tell this story at all. The one thing that’s become clear throughout this journey with this film is that we may not be able to tell this story or other stories about Black artists in five years, honestly.

“It sounds ridiculous, but as I speak, the stories, the history and even the bodies of Black and brown people in this country are under attack,” he said. “Black people are literally written out of government representation right now. Immigrants are being disappeared, and calling out the deaths of Palestinian children results in them being thrown in jail or deported. This is not the hypothetical future. This is happening now, and doing nothing is okay. As artists we have a duty to tell these stories, and as people we still have the power to do something about them. We must fight this. Only then can we create a future we want to live in. Fuck.” Trump, fuck ICE and liberate Palestine.”

“Andor” creator Tony Gilory, whose show is being honored for its prescient look at what happens when oppressive forces take control of society, noted that “we’ve spent six years thinking about a fascist takeover of a galaxy far, far away. Six years of thinking about what happens to ordinary beings when an authoritarian, insane, out-of-control regime comes into the deal, and the show is basically what we learned.

“If you’re not willing to fight for the things you love, your family, community, your culture, your planet, your truth, freedom, then there’s some motherfucker waiting to come in and take it away from you,” he said. “We have learned that courage, sacrifice and resistance come in all shapes and sizes, and we have learned that courage is contagious.”

Gilroy paraphrased a character from “Andor” who noted that oppressors want to commit so many atrocities at once and flood the zone so that the citizens are too stunned to pay attention. That’s clearly similar to what’s happening in this country right now. “There’s so much going on, it’s a firehose of nonsense that you just can’t get through,” Gilroy said. “And here we are. There is no new cycle going on right now that doesn’t include a variety of acts of violence that wouldn’t be grounds for treason in America at any other time in our history.”

He ended with a message to the journalists, documentarians and storytellers in the audience: “Please don’t stop. Please don’t turn off the lights until we can kill this nightmare… and fuck the empire!”

“Alabama Solution” filmmaker Andrew Jarecki noted that his document made waves because so few reporters are denied access to U.S. prisons, “even as we incarcerate more of our citizens than any $160 billion-a-year democratic country.” His fellow filmmaker Charlotte Kaufman added, “What we’re seeing now in Minneapolis and New York and beyond is government violence and retaliation against those who document it. After making this film, we understand that this has been incubated in our prison system. It’s not surprising that after ICE agents killed Alex Pretti while he was filming on his phone, Kristi Noem said he was brandishing a gun — because to an authoritarian regime, a camera is a weapon.”

Presenters included Affleck, Anthony Anderson, Halle Bailey, Damon Lindelof, Elex Michaelson, Yara Shahidi and Michael Urie. They all gave their own unique, personal speeches; in hers, Bailey — who was tasked with introducing the winners on the theme of “confronting injustice” — alluded to the online vitriol she received for playing the live-action “The Little Mermaid.”

“There were voices questioning whether I should live in a certain iconic world because I didn’t look the way some people always imagined,” she said. “Somehow being told that you don’t belong in a space that people have already decided wasn’t meant for you was a burden I didn’t have to bear. I thought about my heroes, women like Billie Holiday, Eartha Kitt, and Nina Simone, artists who faced criticism, prejudice, and immense pressure, but still chose to create, perform, and be fully who they were. They reminded me that progress never came from waiting for permission.”

PBS Kids was recognized with the Peabody institutional award, presented to PBS Kids senior VP and general manager Sarah DeWitt. “We are out of funding, but we are not defeated,” she said in a rallying cry.

Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons, also presented James L. Brooks with the Peabody industry icon. Ethan Hawke introduced Peabody Pioneer Award winner Sterlin Harjo.

“I am a testament to the things this current administration is against,” Harjo said. “If the Sundance Institute didn’t find the diversity of new voices worth exploring, I wouldn’t be here today. Diversity isn’t a handout, it’s empowerment. Telling someone where they come from and who they are can have an impact on people from different backgrounds.

“I would like to thank my ancestors who survived before me,” he added. “The United States government tried to commit genocide against my people. We are from Georgia, Alabama, Florida and Mississippi, and Mr. Andrew Jackson, the $20 bill himself, led a forced removal act that removed my people from our homeland. There was a war, we were marched at gunpoint and that’s how we ended up in Oklahoma. And let me tell you, they denied it, they denied it was genocide too. Just like today, I feel like I was born into rebellion and survival.”

On production issues, he also said, “We have to treat people with respect and try to give them time to go home at a decent hour. No TV show or movie is worth watching without being a very happy person. You have the opportunity to change his industry. People act like they have answers about where things are going. I would like to tip my hat and encourage all of us in this room to hire real people to do the work and treat those people with respect.”

The evening ended with Amy Poehler (introduced by Ike Barinholtz) receiving the Peabody Career Achievement Award.

“To summarize a career when you’re in the middle of it is a bit strange,” she said. “It feels a bit like imagining being stopped in a marathon and someone handing you a banana. I don’t know, I would never run a marathon. But it’s like goo. This is that special goo that the Peabodys give me to keep me going. Thanks for the goo.”

See the full list of this year’s Peabody winners here. According to Peabody, the 34 winners were chosen from the nominees – who originally came from a list of more than 1,000 entries across all categories. The final winners were chosen unanimously from 28 jury members.