Darkest before the dawn, but the late-night talk shows persist.

Jimmy Kimmel's late-night show returns to the airwaves on Tuesday night.

The good news of the day came at mid-afternoon today, when the Disney folks announced that Jimmy Kimmel was going to return to his late night talk-show on ABC on Tuesday of this week, his suspension for comments made in the wake of the assassination of right-wing firebrand Charlie Kirk apparently served.

Kimmel is not my first choice for late-night entertainment, but he has been a solid second in my book to Stephen Colbert's show on CBS. Sadly, and it's sad because I have been an ardent fan of NBC's Tonight Show since Jack Paar hosted it in the early 1960s (I'll explain later), Jimmy Fallon's version is a distant third. In fact, I'd rank Seth Meyers' Late Night show in the 12:30 a.m. slot on NBC ahead of the suck-up fest that Fallon has turned Tonight into.

Late night TV has been a staple of my existence since I was a wee child. I've always been somewhat of a night owl, and there were many times over my formative years when I knew I could sneak into the "television room" of our house, find my parents sound asleep in their chairs, and I could sit in front of the 25-inch General Electric TV and watch the near-neurotic Paar, his sidekick Hugh Downs (later of "20/20" fame), and their stable of celebrities.

Johnny Carson was political at times.

When Paar imploded and NBC plucked a rising talent named Johnny Carson off a game show that aired afternoons on ABC (it was originally called, "Do You Trust Your Wife," I believe), I was there to see it happen. For years, Carson was the only game in town -- and those who bemoan his departure by claiming he was never political, that's just not true. Johnny had his moments, especially during the final death throes of the Nixon presidency. But it didn't seem in those days that political discourse needed to be the staple of entertainment. Nixon certainly provided the fodder for comedians, but at the time, it seemed as if he was a mere anomaly in American governance -- and once he was gone, we'd all get back to normal.

Sadly, that was just the tip of the iceberg. Today, our government is stacked from top to bottom with crooks, racists, misogynists, xenophobes and reprobates. Instead of the best and brightest, this nation has put the worst and darkest into its highest offices. And among many in media and entertainment that have attempted to stem the tide, individuals such as Colbert, Kimmel and Meyers on network TV and John Oliver and Jon Stewart on cable offerings have advanced to the front line of our defense.

And now, Donald Trump is trying to rid us of them all. 

Our dear Orange Führer isn't doing it with his lame executive orders, but he has figured out how to use leverage to get what he wants. In recent months, both Paramount, which owns CBS, and Disney/ABC required federal approval of deals that would result in huge mergers of media companies. And since both required the approval of the Federal Communications Commission because the mergers involved over-the-air broadcasters (cable companies and streaming services are not governed the same way), Trump could exert influence by sending his lapdogs out (such as FCC chairman Brendan Carr) to threaten the networks and their parent companies with holding up or nixing the deals if they didn't get Trump's harshest critics off the air.

Colbert: Canceled.

So in May, we learned that Colbert's Late Show on CBS would be canceled following 10 years as the successor to David Letterman at the end of a year's time. Almost immediately, Paramount's merger with Skydance was approved. Paramount's excuse was that the Late Show was losing millions of dollars. The Late Show, meanwhile, was the highest rated of all the late-night offerings.

And then ABC used Kimmel's monologue of a week ago, maybe a little insensitive in content immediately following the shooting death of Kirk in Utah, as an excuse to placate the enraged MAGAts by suspending the host of 20 years "indefinitely." I've heard those comments over and over, and I have yet to hear exactly what warranted his suspension.

But then again, I've bitten my own tongue countless times in recent days, holding back my true feelings about the late Charlie Kirk -- partly out of respect for the dead, partly out of fear of retribution in some manner or another. And I will continue to do so.

I will say this much. This country was founded upon the premise that free speech, especially about topics of political import or governance, was absolutely essential in the quest to create a truly free society. It was so important to the Founding Fathers, they made it the first official alteration of the document they created to govern our nation.

In my mind, there's free speech, and there's irresponsible free speech. Both are protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution, and no one deserves to lose their lives over their opinions -- no matter how reprehensible they may be. An assassin's bullet was the ultimate transgression, and cannot be accepted as anything but that. 

But at the same time, a president that instructs his minions to attack, restrict and even incarcerate his critics in media and entertainment, calling their commentary "illegal" even though it fairly reflects assessments of the outrageously miserable results of his presidency, is just as guilty of violating the rights of Americans that count every day upon the protection of the nation's laws as a deranged young man on a rooftop with a rifle.

I'd like to think that Disney/ABC had a sudden attack of testicular fortitude in its decision to reinstate Kimmel. More likely, however, it was the bottom line. Disney stock lost billions of dollars of value in the wake of Kimmel's suspension, and individual customers tied up the phone lines for hours canceling their subscriptions to the streaming service Disney+. This will not please the Orange Führer, and while I have yet to see any comments from him while I'm writing this, I can't wait to read the latest eruption of Mount Mango on "Truth Social."

At least something good has come of this, however. As the only one of the four late-night shows that is based in Hollywood, Kimmel gets better A-list entertainment guests. Especially when Marvel has a new movie out, as Marvel is a part of the Disney empire, the casts will always appear together on Kimmel's show. Colbert's shows tend to be a little more political or highbrow in nature, and sometimes, you just need a little more good, old-fashioned entertainment. And Fallon has made a silly circus out of the format, which makes me regret even more that NBC couldn't have had the stones to keep Conan O'Brien in the job.

Meyers: Fellow Wildcat.

But when it comes to powerful political commentary mixed expertly with humor, Kimmel holds his own with the brilliance of Colbert and Meyers. The latter two both graduated from Northwestern University, when brilliance comes naturally -- and, coincidentally, it also happens to be the alma mater of the author of this blog. In any event, Kimmel is always a solid option for my late-night viewing.

There has been talk that the future of talk shows of this sort may not rest with the over-the-air networks at all. Perhaps some benefactor could opt to create a new entertainment network, and that operation could use talents like Colbert, Kimmel, Meyers and O'Brien as anchors of a streaming service that wouldn't be beholding to the FCC.

Maybe all this won't be necessary once Trump is out of office and remembered only as a rank shitstain on the clean white sheets of America. But the Orange Führer's plans are to install himself as the first American king, the Constitution be damned. So if these next few years are going to be trying times for our nation, I'd rather be led by individuals that can plainly state that the emperor has no clothes -- and make me laugh while they're doing it.

We're going to need the laughter.

MARK FARINELLA wrote for 42 years for The Sun Chronicle of Attleboro, Mass., but he always wanted to host his own talk show. That's what "The Owner's Box" is for. Contact him at theownersbox2020@gmail.com.