‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’ apologizes for ‘kill everyone in China’ sketch

ABC is rushing to make amends after a “Jimmy Kimmel Live” skit this month jokingly proposed killing “everyone in China” to help solve America’s financial problems.

In the taped piece that aired Oct. 16, host Kimmel sat down with school kids to discuss the government shutdown. When asked what should be done about America’s debts to China, a boy replied that one solution might be to “kill everyone in China.” (The entire video can be seen here.)

Kimmel chuckled and said, “That’s an interesting idea.”

The line wasn’t funny to the Asian-American activism group 80-20, though, which complained to the network.

ABC put out the following statement: “We offer our sincere apology. We would never purposefully broadcast anything to upset the Chinese community, Asian community, anyone of Chinese descent or any community at large. Our objective is to entertain. We took swift action to minimize the distribution of the skit by removing it from all public platforms available to us and editing it out of any future airings of the show.”

What do you think of the Kimmel show flap? Did ABC handle it the right way?