Fox News host Greg Gutfeld is the self-professed “King of Late Night.” Except, it’s hard to argue that it’s self-professed these days, as Gutfeld! has more than doubled the viewership seen by competitors Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, and Jimmy Fallon.
Gutfeld’s show is, obviously, wildly popular. It does feel important to note that his “late-night” show begins at 10 PM ET, while the competition begins at 11:30 or 11:35 PM ET, so he has an advantage by beginning sooner.
But he also has an advantage of being on Fox News. The network is as popular as it has ever been and is besting network television in primetime.
Truth be told, I haven’t always found Greg Gutfeld to be the comedian many on the right think he is. Can he be witty? Yes. He’s obviously quick on his toes. On The Five, he often plays the role of the curmudgeon who doesn’t care what anyone else on the panel — especially the liberal voice — has to say. Conservatism often struggles in the comedy realm because if it feels like you’re punching down at your subjects, that’s not exactly a recipe for comedy gold. Furthermore, when observational comedy is paired with a political ideology, rather than an unexpected conclusion, it’s a frequent turn-off.
Pair all of that together, and it leads one to question: Is Greg Gutfeld’s late-night show popular because it’s laugh-out-loud funny, or because it’s on Fox News and anything you put on the network that appeals to old, conservative viewers is going to be a hit?
Let’s find out.
The St. Patrick’s Day episode of the show began with text above the title screen that read “The world’s only non-Irish leprechaun,” poking fun at Gutfeld’s diminutive stature. Which is a good start. Because if you can’t laugh at yourself, having the audience find you funny becomes an even greater challenge.
One of the first jokes right off the top of the show was how former President Bill Clinton was at the parade, and wore a “Kiss Me I’m Irish” button, but it was on his pants zipper. The premise of the joke is obviously funny, but what year is it? Clinton has, largely, been out of the public eye for literally 25 years. And he wasn’t even at the parade! If that aspect of the joke were true, it’s at least relevant. But making a “Bill Clinton is a horndog” joke in 2025 feels like the equivalent of saying your favorite TV commercial right now is the Taco Bell chihuahua.
The very next joke was about how President Trump was hit in the face by a boom microphone on Saturday, with Greg Gutfeld saying “Now he knows what Stormy Daniels felt.” That’s funny. Fox News is often criticized — fairly, from my perspective — for failing to share even the slightest criticism of President Trump. Now, this isn’t exactly a criticism, but it doesn’t follow the usual playbook for how the network talks about him, either. Gutfeld let out a “That’s a great joke,” after some audience members groaned at the quip.
The next topic was about the wildly viral story that a Peruvian fisherman who was found 95 days after disappearing from his fishing vessel. The New York Post story claimed he survived by living off insects, turtles, and birds. Gutfeld’s punchline was the story proved “He’s a horrible fisherman.” Again, that’s outstandingly funny. Fantastic observational comedy. This joke literally made me laugh out loud. Because it’s true!
Going back to the punching down, the monologue continued with the Gutfeld! host sharing that a college professor is suing his school after a 380 million-year-old fossil went missing. The punchline? I’ve been wondering where Geraldo (Rivera) went.” That’s punching down. Fox News can deny it all it wants, but Geraldo Rivera left the network because he and Gutfeld couldn’t get along, and they had to choose one of them. Now, was it dumb for Rivera to pick that fight? 100%. Self-awareness goes along way, and when your opponent is the guy who serves as the de-facto lead of the most-watched show on cable news and also hosts the late-night show that is dwarfing legacy programs like The Tonight Show, that’s not a battle you’re going to win.
Instead of dissecting joke by joke, I’ll wrap up my thoughts on Gutfeld’s opening monologue by encapsulating what I saw. Some jokes worked, some didn’t. It wasn’t a 50/50 split. I thought, probably, 70% of the jokes were a hit. But when they missed, they missed.
I also didn’t always love Gutfeld’s delivery. At times, he waits for the audience’s reaction. Which is fine when the reaction is uproarious laughter. But when it’s a small chuckle, there’s an awkward silence, as if he’s waiting on them to actually get the joke. But…they got the joke, they just didn’t think it was as funny as he did. But he didn’t pull from the Norm Macdonald bag of tricks and make the situation more awkward by staring into the camera until the laughs came, he just would make a face as if he was smarter than the Fox News in-studio audience, which wasn’t exactly endearing.
The cadence with which he spoke differs from the traditional opening monologue of a late-night show. What I did like about it was he didn’t then go on to explain the joke like Jimmy Fallon is wont to do. If you have to explain your joke, it wasn’t funny in the first place. Greg Gutfeld never had that issue in the episode I watched. He gave the audience the benefit of the doubt. Did it always lead to the reaction he was expecting? No, but he wasn’t insulting of their intelligence, either.
Overall, I think Gutfeld’s success is probably right down the middle: he’s both funny and he’s on Fox News. Would his content be as popular if he wasn’t on the giant megaphone that Fox News provides? Probably not. But is a guarantee that if the network wanted to do a different show of the same variety in the window it would have the same success? Not likely.
That makes Greg Gutfeld and Fox News a match made in heaven. And when something works like that, you just have to sit back and admire the success, regardless of whether or not you think every joke does or doesn’t work.
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Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing bi-weekly industry features and a weekly column. He has previously served as Program Director and Afternoon Co-Host on 93.1 The Fan in Lima, OH, and is the radio play-by-play voice of Northern Michigan University hockey. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
