Hollywood - Late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel, Actor Matt Damon and ABC network management have located at least 4 more people who either have never heard of their tongue-in-cheek feud/bromance (which they have played up for years on Kimmel's "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" TV Show), or have heard about it previously and are still actually entertained by it.
The gag began about decade ago (it only seems like two decades) when Kimmel apologized to Damon, for no apparent reason, for "running out of time" at the end of the program. Producers of the late night fixture inexplicably loved the line, and the two have based a number of Damon's appearances as well as numerous comedy gags on the supposed "problem" the two have with each other ever since.
Kimmel's appearance as host of the 2017 Academy Awards Presentation on ABC thus set the stage for a renewal of the ongoing bogus quarrel involving the pair, and focus groups convened in Hollywood by the network tried to find enough people who might still think the fake conflict between Kimmel and Damon was still actually good comedy or had not been aware of the almost daily reference to it on Kimmel's show.
After locating at least four people out of almost 500 people interviewed in the groups, the management and writers at ABC decided to let Kimmel and Damon base a few more gags and references to it on the Oscar show, setting the stage for at least several more years of the self indulgent "beef" between the duo. "As long as there is someone out there who still thinks this is funny, and we can locate them, the joke will go on", said one exec at the network.
