Normand, Morril Share Dueling Late-Night Censorship Tales

The media went into overdrive this week over an edited joke.

Comedian Whitney Cummings poked President Donald Trump at last month’s Mark Twain Prize ceremony, saying he showed up late after being stuck in “sex traffic.”

The cut joke got lots of mileage in the media, the same media that called a terrorist attack against an ICE facility a “fireworks” protest.

Terrorist tries to blow up ICE HQ in NYC

NBC: pic.twitter.com/AJONlf7eK9

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) July 20, 2026

Cumming said The Kennedy Center snipped the joke out, not Netflix, which publicly aired the special.

The unsaid framing behind the matter? It’s the end of free speech under Herr Trump!

What’s left unsaid? A political joke without an ounce of truth to it isn’t actually funny (let alone smart). It’s akin to telling a Russian collusion joke in 2026. Fake News yields no laughter.

Having said that, the show still should have left the bit in. More jokes, not less, to paraphrase the late, great Andrew Breitbart.

Meanwhile, other platforms that censor jokes get little to no media coverage.

Consider the confessions heard in the most recent episode of “We Might Be Drunk.” The comedy podcast, co-hosted by Sam Morril and Mark Normand, shared some fascinating behind-the-scenes stories tied to late-night TV.

It began with a fascinating discussion on the format’s well-documented money woes.

Normand noted that “Late Night with Seth Meyers” has a larger-than-necessary crew. Meanwhile, smaller shows (like “We Might Be Drunk”) make do with far fewer people.

“This is all a waste of money. No wonder the Internet is winning,” Normand said. “Then you leave [the late-night show] and do one of these, and it gets more views. Ohhhh. It’s not a good sign for the show biz part.”

That helps explain why CBS was losing $40 million a year on “The Late Show” starring Stephen Colbert.

They turned their attention to late-night censors next. Both Normand and Morril have seen their funny material spiked by two separate shows.

Normand noted a bit that killed during a “Seth Meyers” appearance didn’t make it on-air.

“It does bug me when they cut a line [from my stand-up routine],” Normand said. Meyers’ team edited out a “spicy” joke that got a big laugh on the show’s set.

“And you’re like, ‘What am I doing here?’ I came here to give you me, I gave you me. It hit, that’s my whole thing is to do well. It went well, but it’s too spicy for you guys, so you cut it. I’ll just do it for the Internet now.”

Morril had a similar story.

“Once I did ‘The Daily Show,’ and I got a huge laugh on a trans joke, and it got an applause break. It was a good bit, and they cut it. It was my biggest pop of the set,” Morril said.

“Maybe because [former host] Trevor [Noah] laughed … ‘it’s not good for him to laugh at this,'” Morril speculated about the thinking behind the scenes.

“That’s what [network TV is] competing with now. These other [online] shows aren’t going to censor anything,” Morril said of the newer breed of Web and podcast-based programs.

The two pushed further on the subject, noting that the goal for subversive comedians is to not only get away with challenging jokes but to get a huge laugh as a result.

“That’s why it’s annoying. I took the risk. I stuck my neck out,and it worked, and then they cut it. I did my part,” Normand said.