In 2011, Jimmy Kimmel had an idea: Tell your kids you ate all their Halloween candy and see how they react — and be sure to capture it all on video. While not every parent thinks lying to their child and making them cry is hilarious — which, let’s face it, it is — the segment, titled “Hey Jimmy Kimmel, I Told My Kids I Ate All Their Halloween Candy,” was a massive hit. And while Kimmel decided to give kids a break over the past two years, given the stress they and their parents were already under with the COVID pandemic, this year he brought the tear-filled bit back with a vengeance.
“After two long years, our Halloween YouTube challenge is back,” Kimmel announced on Wednesday night. Though he admitted that “people love this so much, the last two years we didn’t even ask anyone to do it, but hundreds of families did it anyway. So we gave up and we did it again.”
“This is like our Top Gun,” Kimmel explained. “We have to have a sequel. The first time we did it was 10 years ago. And we’ve been doing it so long, some of the kids we tricked grew up to have their own kids to steal candy from.” While the late-night host acknowledged that there are several critics of the segment, they put it to a vote and let the viewers decide whether to bring it back. And it turns out, as you can see above, watching small children cry and threaten their parents may be the new American pastime.
Come for all the spontaneous wailing; stay for the adorable little girl who slams her plastic pumpkin down in a blind rage while yelling, “Dammit!” Or the one who assumed, rightly, “I bet you guys had to poop.”