Late Night With Jimmy Fallon is here. Let's pretend to care about it.

http://i43.tinypic.com/2yz0ho1.jpg

DeNiro, Timberlake and Van Morrison is a pretty good line-up for a debut show, but it's surely all downhill from here for at least the next two years, right? Provided he keeps the seat that long...

pro: will be going to sleep earlier

can't wait to say it's terrible

why all the hate for jimmy? is he just not funny? all i know is he's cute

He's the reason I watched Conan in the first place. Conan's a funny weirdo; Fallon is a toolbox... and you don't to laugh with with the Old Navy-wearing tools this guy represents demographically. No sir. No way.

So far the best thing about this has been Conan's cameo before the opening titles.

This is where the bad habits of present day SNL carry over. He still can't read cue cards without giving away the fact he's reading cue cards.

I mean yeah, this guy is totally just not my style. Wow.

Okay, I was thinking monologues and bits may not be his strength and maybe his interviews will be decent. But this DeNiro segment is a complete trainwreck.

Justin Timberlake = A+

Everything else = F

did they show a sketch about a chair? one chair he didn't choose for the show that goes out and becomes a drug-addicted prostitute?

timberlake was awesome, i missed everything else

Van Morrison's nose is a different color than the rest of his face.

I mean yeah, this guy is totally just not my style. Wow.

― burt_stanton, Tuesday, March 3, 2009 12:54 AM (42 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

despite this i still dont like dude

Does anyone have the inside scoop on how Fallon was picked? It just seems mind-boggling given his resume (handful of years on SNL, few non-hit movies). Conan apparently got some flack for his lack of TV experience when he got picked, but that dude had amazing writer cred going in.

Just how powerful is Lorne Michaels?

I mean you saw Conan talkin bout how Lorne "MADE" his career and there wouldn't have been a show without him, not hard to imagine Lorne having similar pull to get Fallon in place.

Conan's show was rough in the beginning and stayed that way for a while. It wasn't until the third year or so that it settled into a rhythm and the writers started cutting loose.

Fallon's problem is that he's already a known entity. The only mystery about tonight's show was whether or not he could make a transition from sketch player to talk show host. All signs point to NO, and I really don't want to sit through this crap long enough for him to grow into it.

Just how powerful is Lorne Michaels?

Too powerful, apparently. The only other person with that much power at NBC is Dick Wolf. Come to think of it, Chris Meloni would probably be AWESOME as the host of Late Night.

At least with Conan you could say "he wrote some funny stuff on the Simpsons, so maybe he'll be funny here one day." With Fallon, you already know he doesn't make you laugh.

I thought Slow-Jammin' the News was funny when he wasn't talking.

Basically I just wanted The Roots to play all night long.

yeah, that was by far the best part, although I didn't stay up past the "brand integration" segment with audience members licking consumer electronics.

Conan definitely took some time to gain confidence and find a groove, but his show was always funny, from the very beginning.

too bad his movies make money (because my god do they suck). someone maybe could've wrangled Vince Vaughn into doing this.

*vince's movies

I turned it off halfway into the DeNiro segment. Too much pain to watch.

Vince Vaughan's a great idea. I'd love to see a talk show with a real surly host.

^^^ yes. i keep thinking, there's gotta be someone more high profile than Fallon and the various C-listers that auditioned before CBS hired Ferguson that's interested in a job like this. maybe there are some movie stars that are just scared of being the next Chevy Chase?

i was always pretty ambivalent about him, but he did an excellent job sitting in for Letterman back when Dave was out for his bypass.

xpost

also a registered Repub who supported Bush in '04 & McCain Palin, according to Wiki o_O

wouldn't vince vaughn be pretty much the same as craig kilborn?

lettermans a republican too. or was.

I turned it off halfway into the DeNiro segment. Too much pain to watch.

Yeah, that was uncomfortable. I understand that DeNiro's a big get, but why go after someone who's famously reticent?

Timberlake gave Fallon more of an opportunity for give and take, but Fallon also seemed visibly flustered when they got off-topic. Maybe just first show jitters...

didn't see it. There was a decent feature in the NY Times the other day on these late-night shows being the most ossified genre in TV; to succeed is to do what's expected. Is even 62-year-old Letterman better than Leno? Clearly. Are they really all that different? Hell no.

ie, anyone who was as offbeat (yet still derivative of Steve Allen) as '82 Dave would be off the air in a month now.

i don't think that's necessarily true...i don't think the networks would risk their timeslot on something more offbeat, but i think the right host doing weird things would be much more popular than Fallon doing a shaky rendition of the same old shit.

watching it just made me think that i would rather watch a justin timberlake talk show.

the right host doing weird things would be much more popular

no, he'd draw an enthusiastic cult, not deliver half-open eyeballs, which is the goal.

Question for those who have seen it:

TS: Jimmy Fallon's show vs. Carson Daly's show

Recognizing it's only been on the air for one night, but c'mon, gut reaction plz.

destroy both

this is actually one of those times where Morbs's cynicism and my cynicism align; everything he's said re: weird late-night hosts has been OTM

I think you mean laserlike realism!

I thought it would be impossible for anyone to approach the level of Carson Daly, who is offensively awful.

i'm pretty sure "enthusiastic cult" would describe the audience that kept Dave and Conan on the air for their first 5 years or so. you don't need to be a blockbuster hit to survive at 12:35, you just have to be popular enough and well liked, as far as i can tell.

that was then, this is now.

maybe it's just how godawful late Carson is on but anytime i'm unfortunate enough to be up watching his show i kind of enjoy how apologetically half-assed and lackadaisical it is. it's like he knows he shouldn't be there, is wondering why NBC even airs anything that late, but here we are, let's do this talk show thing. nothing special but definitely >>>> Fallon.

actually Carson was one of the best impressions Fallon ever did on SNL, totally depressed and full of contempt for all the TRL kids

Wow. I gotta catch a few episodes of Fallon. This is like getting the opportunity to catch Chevy Chase/Magic Johnson again!

of course i read sd's last 2 posts as being about JOHNNY until it got to "TRL"

ie, anyone who was as offbeat (yet still derivative of Steve Allen) as '82 Dave would be off the air in a month now.

― Dr Morbius, Tuesday, March 3, 2009 9:25 AM (34 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

oh for the heady, iconoclastic, irreverent days of 1982

entertainment-conglomerate bottom lines are way more stringent.

when im invited as a guest i will just flirt w/the camera giggle and bite my hand

Did anyone replace James Corden?

jimmy kimmel monologue is the only late night i watch. i watch it on youtube.

i'd rather watch carson daley than jimmy fallon. he was a big cokehead too wasn't he? during his snl days. maybe they all have to be though. he just seems like someone who saw adam sandler on snl and said "i can do that!". and then kinda did that. but not really. because he was completely forgettable in any movie he was in.

XP Corden was supposed to get replaced with a comedy game show, but I think the strikes have stalled that project.

Did anyone replace James Corden?

Yes, a WGA strike.

yea it's weird to see old clips of Colbert where he's got a lot more bite, I mean christ that White House Coorespondant's dinner set during the Dubya years was genuinely ballsy. what he's doing now is definitely not his strong suit but whatever you know he's getting paid and has a higher profile than ever so good for him

I think the one guy who got the tone right during the Trump years was Seth Myers, unfortunately he just never makes me laugh which is kind of a big deal. I do admire how fast he can talk at least

dang xpost — a reboot of @midnight was planned but Corden peaced out months earlier than planned.

I only really started watching Colbert show clips on YT after 2016. His monologue on the night of Jan 6, audience free of course, was crackling with a palpible tho somewhat inert rage. Not being able to do these shows post-Trump indictments must be killing them tho.

Myers had the best Trump impression (of all the chat hosts) somehow.

Did Colbert "come back to Christ" or something around 2018?

Pretty sure he’s been religious all along

Colbert's CBS show is just nowhere near as funny as the old one. Kind of the same as Letterman on CBS, you just lost the somewhat pure strange absurd comedy of the old gig.

Some of those bits on Colber's fear of Bears used to really crack me up. The one bit about going after Asian Carp and he had this long list of animals needed to eventually fight the Asian Carp (and Bears) I always thought was hilarious.

Conan could do weird stuff like that, I always loved the deal where they would use a still of Clinton and have the lips move like those weird old cartoons. Even though it was Clinton, it was just more weird comedy than actually political.

there was a certain kinda selflessness to the best SNL performers that Fallon didn't possess w/his eager to please and "look at me" thing. the flubbed lines probably did lead to breaking character being a much more acceptable form of SNL comedy.

― omar little, Friday, 8 September 2023 21:01 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

the only snl thing of his I've seen where I thought he was good was him and Rachel Dratch doing the Massachusetts teenagers, and that's because his character is actually meant to be giggling and looking at the camera, he's diegetically showing off

Corden's exit was announced about a year in advance, and made sense since he started in in the he spring of '15. Maybe he already smelled blood in the water, but he made his grand exit the Thursday before the Writer's Strike.

"his weapon is effusive nothingness"
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cw7nvn0gHcm/?hl=en

Craig Ferguson seemed like a good interviewer, engaging with the guests, he should have done a Tom Snyder type of show.

Seth Myers might have been a good Daily Show host.

Ferguson was really cool

Ferguson's show was probably the last time network late night will ever skew "weird."

My favorite Craig Ferguson fact is that he was in a band with Peter Capaldi

A steady gig is a steady gig and I don't fault them for it at all, but it sucks that the Roots hitched their wagon to his, in a cultural sense.

I know a writer out in LA who has hung out with Fallon and he made him sound awful. Like he would choose a random who was hanging out with them and just pick at them for entertainment. Seems pretty well known?

have you guys watched any episode of colbert in the last 4-5 years? it's one of the saddest things i've ever seen

― J0rdan S., Friday, September 8, 2023 3:44 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

lol i'm extremely here for this hyperbole, agree the overall show is terrible and depressing, but imo some of his monologue segments were p good last time i watched. "meanwhile" pretty tight and well written

Colbert’s monologue has been absolute resistance lib dogshit for at least that span, made much worse by him being too wildly rich to comprehend how bad the government is

Myers and Kimmel’s writers do a great job of threading the normie-center-(slightly)-left politics needle for a general audience, tailored to the hosts’ voices and own degrees of political engagement (esp Sal Gentile, who does A Closer Look for Myers). Colbert seems to think Liquid Swords Biden was real, and can barely get through a shoot without cosplaying him.

Fallon, though, has never gotten through a single complete sentence in any interview I’ve seen him conduct.

right I just don't buy Colbert's monologue thing at all but when he does "Meanwhile" he's still pretty sharp and funny. also a pretty good interviewer

Recently Steven Wright was on Conan's podcast and in the discussion Wright asked him how he could do 3000+ episodes of late night night television and stay sane. Conan's great response was "Well, many of them.... weren't good"

NFW that Fallon could hold up a show without all his tricks like Craig Ferguson. Ferguson had no band, no sidekick, no special prop dept and pretty much made an entertaining show in that he could BS funny stuff off the top of his head with people.

i love conan so much

i guess i meant "meanwhile" not the opening monologue itself. i don't know if i've watched one since trump but in theory i'm not mad at colbert gassing up biden

Ferguson had no band, no sidekick

How quickly we forget his animatronic skeleton that looked like it was stolen from the MST3K set.

The Shout Factory (free) streaming app has a 24/7 Carson channel, can’t believe no one’s tried to make that happen with ‘80s Letterman or ‘90s Conan.

Or the Chevy Chase Show

Haven’t watched his talk show at all but Colbert gets a lifetime pass from me for Strangers with Candy and Colbert Report

People throw around the term 'theatre kid' around almost exclusively to criticize female performers, but Fallon is totally a theatre kid. I did ComedySportz in High School when he was first on SNL, and he was seen as aspirational.

― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain)

i thought "theatre kid" was a euphemism for "confirmed bachelor"

Pretty sure he’s been religious all along

― deep wubs and tribral rhythms (Boring, Maryland)

colbert is catholic, right? i come from a liberal catholic background and i definitely get that vibe from him

Yes he is, totally.

Haven’t watched his talk show at all but Colbert gets a lifetime pass from me for Strangers with Candy and Colbert Report

― deep wubs and tribral rhythms (Boring, Maryland), Sunday, September 10, 2023 7:33 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Upthread I mentioned this but character-actor Colbert and late night Colbert feel like distinctly different people. Even right before the late night show kicked off he did a sketch about how he had to get rid of his beloved beard he’d grown in between shows. It had the goofy spirit of “original” Colbert that I’m not sure ever come out these days but I’m also not watching the show at all, just going by clips I’ve seen here and there. I do watch the interview with Tim & Eric where they came out dressed as clowns a few times a year though.

tbh it's hard to blame him, dude spent two decades doing stuff like Strangers with Candy and Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law, what he's doing now obviously pays a lot more and has a much higher profile so if he has to do shitty #resistance comedy than so be it. mostly I just wish he had better writers

I think it's just that early on I would have guessed there'd be a little more goofy Conan-esque type of vibe overall, instead of yeah a #resistance smart aleck thing. I think he's always relied on a character and without one it's jarring to see, maybe that's all it is and I personally find it odd. I don't know.

i find his show dire for exactly that reason (the #resistance smart aleck thing). it's just not funny. I think he can be an ok interviewer but not in the context of this show. Frankly I don't think anyone helming any late night shows is good any longer. Kimmel probably the one I can stomach the best and it's not like I sit up and watch his show ever. Unlike earlier eras of my life, where I would not miss Carson, Letterman, or Conan. The format is redeemable but you need a particular type of host. I cannot think of anyone who seems like a legit heir to those guys aside from Jon Stewart who isn't going to go back to this either.

I forgot about Seth Meyers. honestly I don't know if I've ever watched his show.

Tonight ABC reran Kimmel's first ep from 2020, and he's just announced Taylor Hawkins would be on later that week.

Colbert doesn't do 'zany' very convincingly these days. He's too much of a square, his show is too tame, and he's too busy reminding us how erudite and nice he is. Don't get me wrong, those are good qualities to have! But I'd rather watch Letterman and Conan do stupid shit.

Kimmel is fine, his sarcasm and quickness are clearly influenced by his reverence for Letterman, which I enjoy -- but I've never had strong feelings about him other than 'I wish he would stop squinting at me'.

Wasn’t there also an article years ago about what a terror Kimmel was to his staff. Seems to go with the job.

Kinda seems like it, though maybe Conan is the exception. Maybe someone knows something to prove me wrong, but by all accounts it seems like he was a great guy to work with/for.

I've heard mostly good things about Seth Meyers too

he's always relied on a character and without one it's jarring to see, maybe that's all it is

yeah i think this is it. he’s a very effective satirist but ask him to be himself and it doesn’t work the same way, so he adopts this smug mien as a mask and it’s kinda offputting

TBH I think that smug thing is also a put on. when Colbert does heartfelt conversations, he is completely convincing and like 100x more likable to me; the interview with Dua Lipa is a good example. He doesn't do this most of the time.

Wasn’t there also an article years ago about what a terror Kimmel was to his staff. Seems to go with the job.

Was there? Jack Allison tweeted a lot one week about bad workplace practices after he left, but they were mainly general corporate issues iirc - eg time off for health issues, being chided for sharing his salary details with a lower-paid female colleague. Perhaps marrying a junior writer and promoting her to head writer was Kimmel’s learning and growing corrective. (On the other hand, when a guest on Corden, Jimmy smilingly pressed James to address a cameraman by name, enough to make it clear that his interpersonal contempt for underlings was known in the business.)

IIARCA it was Allison tweets that publicly exposed Corden for going to a WGA meeting as a non-member to request a special exemption to pay new writers less than guild standards.

xpost Yeah, that was it. It sounds like it wasn't just Jimmy, but he was part of it:

"I had a mental breakdown at @JimmyKimmelLive and took one single day off for mental health. Then I was ostracized for nearly a year before I quit. Later, Jimmy told me on email that my bosses (including his wife) pushes me out because they didn’t believe me about my mental health."

(oh yeah, here’s Corden replying and confirming it)