Toronto’s embattled mayor has become a regular fixture on U.S. talk shows, with late-night comedians finding new ways to poke fun at Rob Ford after he admitted to smoking crack cocaine “probably in one of my drunken stupors.”
For the second night in a row, Ford was the lead story on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”
After a few laughs, the self-described “fake news show” host took a serious turn with a message to Ford and Toronto residents, urging the mayor to seek help for substance abuse issues.
“I heard that your Mayor Ford’s approval ratings went up after it came out that he smoked crack,” the political satirist said to Torontonians. “You know what that makes you as a city, Toronto? Enablers, eh.
“Now, let me ask you a question. Are you waiting for this man to hit rock bottom? I’m going to say this. I don’t know you, I don’t live in your city. Mayor Ford is a lot of fun to ridicule but my guess is not a lot of fun to eulogize and that’s where this thing is headed,” Stewart deadpanned as he stared into the camera. “Now even though I will lose precious material, please go to rehab. Will I lose jokes in the short term? Of course, but my guess is it’s a long-term investment. You’ll be back. Get some help.”
Colbert smokes from glass pipe
On “The Colbert Report,” host Stephen Colbert called Ford a “Chris Farley tribute mayor” and mocked his apology and “drunken stupor” explanation.
“See? After a few beers he’s just a social crack smoker,” Colbert said. “It’s like how some people only smoke cigarettes when they’re strung out on heroin.”
The gag continued with Colbert telling his audience he is so inspired by Mayor Ford’s “courage” that he is coming clean about his own mistakes.
Colbert then grabs a small glass pipe from beneath his desk and smokes an unknown substance contained within.
“Have I ever smoked crack? Yes, but that was in the past,” Colbert said after putting away pipe. “There’s nothing I can do to change what happened. All I can do is apologize and move on. I am so, so sorry that I smoked crack and I promise you it will not happen again.”
To cheers and applause, Colbert retrieves the pipe and smokes from it a second time.
'How to tell if your mayor is smoking crack'
Fellow late-night funnyman Jimmy Kimmel had one of the more inventive bits as he put together a visual "guide" to help constituents to weed out a crack-smoking mayor.
“Most people in Toronto, a lot of people that are embarrassed that he represents their city, but that shouldn’t be the case,” Kimmel said as he introduced a segment called “How to tell if your mayor is smoking crack” on his show.
According to the "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" host, there is no way to know that your mayor is going to smoke crack.
“But, if possible, I do want to make sure that this kind of thing never happens to another city, so we put together a short informational video that I hope will protect other major cities from going through the same kind of embarrassment that Toronto is experiencing right now,” the host said.
Kimmel then showed a montage of unflattering clips of Ford - walking into a news camera, falling as he tries to throw a football, angrily yelling at journalists to get off his property - under a list of indicators, including blurred vision, loss of balance and sudden fits of rage.
To the audience's laughter, the final two indicators were clips of Ford’s earlier denial – “I do not smoke crack cocaine” – and Tuesday’s stunning admission – “Yes, I have smoked crack cocaine.”
Letterman, Leno join in
Longtime late-night hosts David Letterman and Jay Leno also riffed on the mayor in their monologues, drawing a link between Ford's scandal and elections that were held across the U.S. on Tuesday.
New York voters elected a new mayor before Letterman's show was recorded.
"It doesn’t make any difference who becomes mayor (of New York), the mayor of Toronto will send them a vial of crack," said Letterman, who paused and laughed after mentioned "Toronto."
Leno took a similar approach, saying Tuesday should have been resignation day in Toronto.
“At least he had a good excuse,” Leno said of Ford’s crack use. “Here we all thought he was a cokehead or crackhead, turns out he’s just a drunk.”
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