Jimmy Kimmel gets emotional on the talk show’s 20th anniversary

Jimmy Kimmel became visibly emotional as he thanked his entire production team and viewers for the 20th anniversary of his US talk show.

The comedian and presenter said he doesn’t know what he’s done to earn his success as he looks back on two decades of live shows and guests.

Jimmy Kimmel Live! first aired on January 26, 2003 and featured a cast of Snoop Dogg and George Clooney and music by Coldplay.

For the milestone event, Kimmel received the same guests and later took the stage to play with Chris Martin and the band.

In his opening monologue, Kimmel read out some of the comically bad reviews the show received after the show first aired.

He then recalled that when the show started, there were “no iPhones, no YouTube…no Uber, no Twitter, no WiFi, no Netflix, no Google.”

“Very few people expected us to make it this far, but we made it this far for two reasons,” he said, joking, “I made a great deal with the devil my soul is going to roast.”

He then added that key to the show’s success had been the “lots of great people” behind it, before thanking several members of the program team individually.

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He also showed the audience a stack of papers, a collection of “one-sheets” detailing each and every show — 3,588 in all.

Kimmel also gave a special shout-out to his show pal and friend Guillermo, who has appeared on the program for many years and once again got emotional.

“It takes a lot of people to do something that stupid, and we’ve covered a lot of stupid stuff over the past 20 years,” he said.

“(And) I’ve been granted a platform to speak out on issues that are important to me, like health care and sound gun laws.”

Addressing the audience directly, he added, “Thank you to those who have stuck with us from the start and to those who have joined us along the way.

“Thank you for your patience. I don’t know what I did to deserve it, but I appreciate it.

“I don’t take that for granted, and I promise as long as I’m here you’ll never have to see Matt Damon’s stupid face on the show.”

It will be almost two months before Kimmel is scheduled to host the 95th Academy Awards on March 12th.