I have gotten a little annoyed at the over-use by late night talk shows of “real people” in skits or functions that are designed to make fun of the person’s awkwardness as a non-performer. Letterman, of course, had Larry “Bud” Melman (Calvert DeForest) at NBC, and then Sirajul and Mujibur at CBS, and later Rupert Jee – not to mention the occasional appearances by his mother Dorothy. Chelsea Handler has Chuy.

It can be funny, and it doesn’t have to be cruel if handled correctly, but it can be cruel, and it’s lost some of its humor from overuse.

Jimmy Kimmel has, or had, his security guards: his real-life Uncle Frank, and Veatrice, and Guillermo. I believe my brother and I spoke to Veatrice when we were in line for “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” in 2007, asking her what our chances were of getting into the show. But at that time, Kimmel came on late in the Nashville market, and I didn’t watch him regularly enough to know who she was until later. Veatrice died of cancer in 2009.

Uncle Frank, however, transcended the “real person” shtick in a lot of ways. He was, as I mentioned, Kimmel’s actual uncle. He was also a retired New York City police officer who had been a security guard for Frank Sinatra. Like Letterman and his mother, it was obvious that the relationship between Kimmel and Frank was affectionate and real, and that took some of the edge of the fact that we were, in some ways, laughing at Frank for being an amateur on a professional stage.

Uncle Frank died two weeks ago – and Kimmel returned to the air tonight with one of the most remarkable monologues on any late-night show in some time. An obviously-emotional Kimmel, his voice breaking at times, poked fun at Uncle Frank’s idiosyncrasies as if he had to laugh to keep from crying. It was a hilarious, and strangely moving, tribute.

Kimmel’s first guest was Don Rickles, who had known Frank from even before the Sinatra days, when Rickles was working the Copacabana Club and Frank was a police officer. Rickles, in his own moment of out-of-character sincerity, told Kimmel that the tribute had been remarkable.

“You were magnificent,” Rickles said.

WKRN in Nashville will begin airing “Nightline” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” in their actual network time slots tonight. “Nightline” will follow the local news at 10:35 or so, then JKL will, with apologies to Matt Damon, air at 11:07 or thereabouts.

This will be the first time in decades that “Nightline” has aired in its proper slot and the first time JKL ever has. For many years, WKRN postponed them by an hour in order to run sitcom repeats, which were considered more profitable. A year or two ago, they cut that down to 30 minutes, and now the delay is being done away with completely.

“Nightline” has, in some markets, been picking up some older viewers since Conan took over for Jay on “The Tonight Show,” and I’m guessing WKRN hopes to capitalize on that trend and the shakeup in late-night programming in general.

My problem, though, is that my satellite receiver / DVR has only two tuners, so I can’t regularly tune in Dave, Conan and Jimmy at the same time.