On June 27th, 2024, audiences tuned intoJimmy Kimmel Live!to watch the return of a television legend. This was not Jimmy Kimmel, as he is taking a few weeks off from hosting his popular late-night television talk show. Instead, audiences tuned in to see the return of the best interviewer in Hollywood,Jiminy Glick. This was the culmination of an event week asMartin Shorthad been guest hosting all week prior and had brought out his famous character Jiminy Glick to do pre-tapped interviews all leading up to Thursday’s show, where he hosted live.
For many, it was a return of a fan-favorite character. Clearly, everyone who participated in the interviews, including Bill Hader, Sean Hayes, Melissa McCarthy, and Nick Kroll, had a great time being interviewed by the legendary comedic character. Yet, for an entire generation, this was all new to them.
Some viewers who probably best know Martin Short for his role inOnly Murders in the Buildingmust have been taken aback by this Jiminy Glick character and wondered why everyone was treating it as such a big deal. Here is everything to know about Martin Short’s famous comedic alter ego, Jiminy Glick.
Who Is Jiminy Glick and Where Did He Come From?
Jiminy Glick first appeared on thesyndicated talk showThe Martin Short Show, which lasted for one season from January 1999 to November 2000. The character of Jiminy Glick, as played by Short, is an overweight interviewer who has been working in the entertainment scene for years, but the main joke is he actually knows very little about the industry.
Despite being ignorant of a lot of pop culture or even the people he is interviewing, he still acts like an expert. He can also be forgetful, going off on tangents, and will say his subject shares a strange detail with another unrelated celebrity. The central joke is that Jiminy often asks direct, sometimes outright rude questions to his guests that no regular interviewer would dare ask, but he doesn’t see it as mean because he manages to phrase it as a compliment.
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Short cited comedian Skip E. Lowe as an inspiration for the character of Glick. WhileThe Martin Short Showtanked in ratings, Jiminy Glick proved popular enough to get his own series,Primetime Glick, which aired from June 27, 2025, to June 24, 2025, for three seasons on Comedy Central. It was also modeled on a talk show format, with the main bit being Jiminy Glick conducting absurd interviews with guests.
In 2004, Short played Jiminy Glick in the feature filmJiminy Glick in Lalawood.
Jiminy Glick, The Character
Short has developed many notable aspects of Glick, both in terms of personality and backstory. His weight is often a major source of jokes, as he sometimes eats junk food during interviews.
He is known to offer his guests food, but if they try taking it before he offers it, he becomes very territorial, which leads to one of the funniest pieces of his characterization: his voice. Typically, Jiminy Glick will speak with a high-pitched voice but sometimes move into a deep growl that almost resembles a gargle, as if he is having trouble breathing.
In the years since his creation, Glick has revealed many “facts” about himself, which paint a fascinating picture and an absurd backstory that Short should really consider making into another feature film. In his most recent appearance onJimmy Kimmel Live!, he revealed how he went through puberty three different times, at the ages of 8, 14, and the morning of the series.
He is the middle child of ten. He is married to a woman named Dixie. The two are Buddisht, and both are pole vaulters. He has four children: Morgan, Mason, Matthew, and Modine (named after Morgan Mason and Matthew Modine). Matthew and Modine are twins who were once triplets, but he sent the third child away as he thought two twins were enough.
Jiminy Glick’s Most Famous Interviews
Being around for twenty years, Glick has interviewed some of the biggest names in Hollywood. Being a comedic character played by a comedian as well regarded and respected as Martin Short has meant more people have been willing to go along with his shtick than they likely would have with other comedic bit characters.
In Glick’s interview with Larry David,David has fun fighting back against Glick’s personain his typical fashion, but Glick keeps rolling with the punches and even gets David to laugh. In the interview with the otherSeinfeldco-creator, Jerry Seinfeld, where Seinfeld starts poking at Glick’s love life and the fact that someone is married to Glick.
Obviously, comedians like Nathan Lane, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Mel Brooks have had a great time being interviewed by Jiminy Glick, as they were able to do a lot of improv with him. Yet even non-comedians have gotten in on the fun. Glick interviewed Steven Spielberg. Spielberg plays the whole thing straight, even when Glick says, “You’ve made so many films, when are you gonna do the big one?” toa director who made some of the most famous movies ever, making it even funnier.
There is also a great comedic bit where Speilberg begins talking about persevering classic cinema along with Martin Scorsese, and Glick gets up in the middle and starts eating, including crawling around the floor to pick up food that he dropped.
Recently, Glick’s interview with Bill Hader has gone viral with just how much Hader breaks character, laughing at a lot of Glick’s comments. It’s worth noting that Hader did not have anything specifically to promote, he just wanted the chance to interact with Jiminy Glick the character.
Meanwhile, during the live segment, Melissa McCarthy had fun improvising with Glick about an entire history they had in her early career, implying they hooked up back in the day, adding more layers to the Glick backstory.
Why Bring Glick Back Now?
Since the end of Glick’s series in 2004, the character has made numerous guest appearances on programs likeMADtv,Saturday Night Live,Hollywood Squares, andMaya and Marty, but the character has been more of a special guest star than a primary character.
Meanwhile, Martin Short, as an actor, has taken on a variety of projects, including films likeThe Santa Clause 3: The Escape ClauseandInherent Vice, as well as a lot of voicework for films such asMadagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted,The Addams FamilyandAquaman and the Lost Kingdom. Short has also been busy with television in series likeMulaney,The Morning Show, and most recently, the hit Hulu seriesOnly Murders in the Building.
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His role onOnly Murders in the Buildinghas not only been a significant career resurgence for him, buthas also introduced him to a whole new audience. Short has been nominated for Emmys, Golden Globes, and Critics Choice Awards for his role inOnly Murders. Combining that with the fact that it has been over twenty years since Jiminy Glick was a television show character, there is a great deal of nostalgia attached to his return.
For many modern comedians, Martin Short and the character of Jiminy Glick stand as major inspirations, and they now want to jump at the chance to be “interviewed” by him.
2024 has been a big year for Glick’s resurgence, as a week prior to him appearing onJimmy Kimmel Live!, he made a guest appearance onReal Time with Bill Maher. That episode aired on July 29, 2025, with him appearing in guest spots throughJimmy Kimmel Live!before getting to host the show on August 08, 2025. After twenty years, Glick got to host a talk show once more.
