Jimmy Kimmel plans to be an active Emmy host

By Glenn Whipp

June 21, 2012 12 AM PT

Jimmy Kimmel has been kicking around some ideas for his Emmy-hosting gig, but when we talked to him recently he was a bit reluctant to delve into specifics, since he had yet to meet with the show’s producers.

But Kimmel did say he would probably continue to explore his self-described “obsession” with acceptance speeches that go unread, a fixation he got some laughs from during last year’s ceremony when presenting with Jimmy Fallon.

“If you sit in the audience at the Emmys or any of these awards shows, you can see people pulling their speeches out of their pockets and reviewing their notes,” Kimmel says. “And there’s nothing sadder than that moment when they put their speeches back in their pockets.

“I always wonder what becomes of those speeches,” Kimmel continues. “Do they save them for next year? Or do they tear them up in disgust like a losing ticket at a race track and throw them up in the air? That would be a great book, actually: ‘The Acceptance Speeches That Didn’t Make the Air.’

Kimmel is also adamant that he will host “the whole show, not just the first 15 minutes.”

“I like to be in a position where I can comment on things that have just happened,” says Kimmel, who has hosted the American Music Awards four times as well as the ESPYs. “I don’t like to come off a commercial break and just introduce the next thing. If something weird happens … and, yeah, I know weird things don’t often happen at the Emmys -- it’s not like Snoop Dogg is going to come out in a cloud of pot smoke -- but if something strange happens, I want to be able to react to it.”

The Primetime Emmy Awards will be held Sept. 23 at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles and broadcast on ABC.

Obama and Kimmel’s best jokes from the Correspondents’ Dinner