Jimmy Kimmel mocks Morrissey, vegetarians in a skit

By August Brown

Feb. 27, 2013 12 AM PT

This post has been updated. See note below for details.

If there’s anything we’ve learned about Morrissey in his years as an indie icon, it’s that he takes his values seriously.

So no one should have been too surprised when the animal-rights activist canceled a planned appearance on Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show Tuesday after he learned that the cast of “Duck Dynasty,” A&E;’s reality show about a duck-hunting family business, would also be guests.

Kimmel, however, took the slight a bit personally. He devoted a swath of the show to mocking Morrissey -- and vegetarians in general -- with a skit featuring the stars of “Duck Dynasty.” He said he kept the show’s stars on as guests “because they have guns,” and cast them in a bit where they hawked fake “carrot calls” for luring vegetables, which they referred to as “yuppie food.”

They had to write the skit, Kimmel said, because Morrissey “keeps finding new ways to depress us.”

For those whom “carrot calls” might actually be kind of useful, Morrissey’s sold-out Staples Center show Friday will feature a vastly expanded vegetarian and vegan menu (though it’s still not clear whether the show will be completely meat-free or not yet).

[Updated at 1:35 p.m.: Morrissey has issued a statement about the episode of Jimmy Kimmel’s show:

“I was disappointed with last night’s Jimmy Kimmel Show wherein our smiling host managed to ridicule depression (70% of Americans have experienced depression according to the National Institute of Mental Health). He then found time to ridicule healthy eating (the obesity epidemic in the U.S. costs $147 billion per year in medical expenditure), and he also ridiculed the notion that animals should be entitled to the possession of their own lives. Furthermore, he found time to jokingly promote gun-ownership - hugely amusing for the parents at Sandy Hook, no doubt. He also promoted his special guests Duck Dynasty – who kill beings for fun. None of the above issues are, of course, as important as Jimmy Kimmel himself, who has finally revealed his show to have an overwhelming loss of meaning. Tune in and relive the intellectual fog of the 1950s.”]