Why Jimmy Kimmel loves returning to his hometown

BROOKLYN (WABC) -- A native son of Brooklyn has returned home in triumph. Jimmy Kimmel told me he had to "up his game" in the big house with a hometown crowd that includes hundreds of friends and relatives.

There's nothing quite like a hometown boy coming back a winner. And if the laughs sound a little louder, that's because Jimmy works to just 140 people in Hollywood and here it's more like 15 times that amount!

"It's a difficult thing because just the applause breaks are longer. The laughs are bigger so you have to pace yourself differently for a big show like this," Jimmy said.

Big means expensive, which is why it's taken him three years to bring his show back here.

"We don't want to leave anyone out. I think we brought at least a hundred people with us," he said.

Jimmy told me that whenever he returns here food is on his mind. Where to eat? The big question. The local institutions carefully chosen.

"We have a few, good pizza places in L.A., but there are more good pizza place in a 3 block radius in Brooklyn than there are in the whole city in LA," Jimmy said.

Jimmy jokes it took him four days to settle on the legendary joint in Midwood as the one to be reproduced and at the Brooklyn Academy of Music touchstones from his old neighborhood are everywhere on a set specially built for this week.

"I think people in Brooklyn will see it and go: I know that place. I go to that place. That looks just like my house," he said.

And standing in front? A host who looks like he belongs there, because he does.

"I like to drop by every so often to remind you I'm not just in the back of your cab. I'm a real person too," Jimmy joked.

Like the old saying goes: you can take the boy out of Brooklyn but you can't take the Brooklyn out of the boy. He may have left at the age of nine for Las Vegas, but the soul of Mill Basin is in him still.

Check out this week's line-up on Jimmy Kimmel Live!