Stay Tuned for Jimmy Fallon said Jay Leno. It didn’t sound natural. Of course if Jay is like any of us, the words “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” are ones that prompt diarrhetic vomiting. I’m going to miss Conan. I know he’ll be back in June, but it won’t be the same. But I’m also willing to give Fallon a chance. I think he’s got potential as a comedian, and on Weekend Update he showed that when he wasn’t giggling under his breath he had a decent sense of timing and delivery. So I was going to give him a chance. In this blog you’ll find a recap of Fallon’s first show written almost entirely on the spot. If you make it ‘till the end of this post, kudos, because it’s ridiculously long.
I expected the worst. And from the start it wasn’t really pretty. There was an expectedly forced, contrived and awkward opening skit that, of course, featured a complacent Conan O’Brien who is probably aware that his legacy is about to be stomped on by an awkward, nervous tool who built a career off of his penchant for laughing at his own jokes. Of course I didn’t know you could build a reputation off of that
From the opening Fallon seemed nervous and uncomfortable. Of course, ten seconds in I realized that’s his shtick. After-all, this is a guy whose entire SNL tenure will be remembered by the fact he consistently laughed at his own jokes. That didn’t change in the opening monologue. But he didn’t totally fuck it up, and that’s a good thing. In fact, Jimmy came out swinging. Sure, he isn’t the most charismatic of hosts, at least not yet, but the jokes were surprisingly funny.
read more after the jump
And then he slow-jammed the news. Jimmy and the Late Night band
Late Night with Jimmy Fallon differs from Late Night with Conan O’Brien because, at least in it’s infancy, it was backed by the legendary Roots crew. No Max Weinberg this time. Instead of the touring drummer for the E Street Band, Jimmy brought in inarguably the most important, talented and resonant hip-hop band of all time. I don’t know how many dicks Jimmy had to suck to land Philly’s finest, but I implore him to continue. Spit, swallow, inseminate…whatever it takes. Up until this point, the first commercial break just past the monologue, the material has been great. But so far Jimmy has done little to prove that he’s anything but the unlikeable, uncharismatic boob I remembered from Weekend Update.
From this point on, this entry will read as a live blog.
- Jimmy is holding a “lick it for ten” contest. He describes it as a contest where you “lick something” and get ten dollars for it. Now I know how Jimmy landed the Roots crew. I cant imagine what he had to lick.
- Oh, so they’re playing the Price is Right angle. I guess that’s okay, but it’s nothing without the creepy senility of the great Rod Roddy.
- Some poindexter just licked a lawn-mower. The super-sexy replay (featuring the earlier Roots accompanied slow-jam) shows that’s probably the most action this kid has ever seen.
- Up next is Jackie, who had to lick an All-In-One Printer. Jckie, who looks like the kind of girl you go after four or five beers in, looks like she’s done it before. Only, y’know, not with a printer.
- Jimmy says the next contestant must be nervous and he says “probably”. They did the unthinkable: they found someone more awkward than Jimmy himself.
- Apparently this is the bonus round, though Jimmy adds that means absolutely nothing. Of course don’t tell contestant number 3 that. He just went for gold(fish), licking the shit off of a fishbowl and seemingly loving it way too much.
- Hm. On paper, “lick for ten” seems fail-proof. But had it not been for the super-sexy replays, the contest would have been the first scuff on a show that will, by all logic, be covered with them by week’s end.
Live blogging is stupid and a pain in the ass. This is where I stopped doing it, at least in this style. Everything from here-on in is going to be partially live-written, meaning I’m writing it as I’m watching it. But I’m not really on time.
Robert DeNiro’s agent obviously hates him, since he was given the ingraciatingly awkward duty of breaking Fallon’s talk-show cherry. It took about two seconds for Jimmy to start his awkward, nervous laugh. Every sentence he delivered was met by a cough-like chuckle. It’s neither endearing nor professional. But it is Jimmy Fallon. You get what you pay for.
Fallon’s questions were terrible. He started off predicating that the interview would be a bunch of short-answer questions. About a minute in, the anecdotes started. He started asking fourth-grade questions about DeNiro getting noticed in New York followed by an awkward, probably made up tale about he (Fallon) and Jack Nicholson going to a baseball game. Then came the impression. I knew it wouldn’t take long, because that was his calling card on Saturday Night Live. Well, that and the nervous laughing. But outside of the facial contorting, Fallon’s impression sucked. Maybe it would have passed if DeNiro wasn’t, y’know, sitting 12-inches to his right. But he was.
Of course at this point it could have been worse. I mean, I’d much rather it be “Late Night with the Legendary Roots Crew”, but Fallon’s gotten off to a better start than Conan did 16 years ago, which isn’t as big of a compliment as it seems because Conan’s early years were atrocious. But I give credit where it’s due because in-spite of his grossly sweaty forehead Fallon is at least holding steady. He’s not crying, yet.
And right on cue, the show goes from tolerable to nauseating. Fallon’s Space Train skit wasn’t funny, and it was obviously done for no other reason than to kill time. I guess in that way it succeeded, but it still wasn’t funny. Hopefully Justin Timberlake’s a better interview than DeNiro. At the very least, hopefully Timberlake looks like he actually wants to be there. Though he’d probably never admit it, DeNiro looked like a guy doing a favour and he looked like he wasn’t happy about it. Collateral is a bitch.
Justin Timberlake walks out and I guess we know where DeNiro’s charisma went. Say what you will about JT, but the guy oozes confidence. He’s helping Jimmy regain his footing, since the two seem to have actual chemistry. Whoever booked DeNiro probably went from looking like a genius to the unemployment line. Jimmy then called on the Roots an JT to do a John Mayer impression. After he described Mayer’s voice as a cross between Smokey the Bear and Macy Gray, JT performs a throaty, near spot-on impression of Mayer, lacking only Mayer’s famous ‘solo’ face. JT then does an impression of Michael McDonald doing a Bud-Light Lime promo. Fuck it, fire Jimmy and give Justin the wheels to the bus. Then DeNiro can promptly throw Jimmy under it, something he seemed to be attempting earlier in the show. I mean, it’s not that Fallon is doing a bad job, but he has to learn how to carry the show when the guest refuses to play along. It’s his first show, and DeNiro isn’t exactly an easy interview, so I’ll cut him some slack. But so far I’m hoping a Justin Timberlake hosted, Roots backed talk show that will never happen. Jimmy Fallon’s show hasn’t disappointed me as much as I expected it to, but it has made me dream the impossible. Some would say that’s worse. Giving a kid a lollipop and taking it away is meaner than promising a kiss and delivering a fist to the face.
I wont say much about Van Morrison other than why is Van Morrison on Late Night television. It’s the year 2009 and Van Morrison isn’t exactly the most enticing guest for a demographic consisting almost exclusively of over-worked, stoned college kids. Plus his jacket doesn’t fit and his ascot does little to hide his jiggly jowls. Also, Morrison may or may not have been singing in English. his performance was musically solid, but his singing sounded like Randy Newman coughing up a hairball.
Jimmy’s first show could have been better, but virtually all of it’s shortcomings can be ironed out fairly easily. With time, I imagine Jimmy will tone down his nervous shtick, or at the very least he’ll learn to control it like Conan’s jitteriness, and I can’t blame Fallon for DeNiro’s complete lack of charisma. What I can do is applaud his effort and say that at the very least Late Night with Co…Jimmy Fallon deserves a passing glance. Maybe your eyes will stick, maybe they wont. But it deserves the chance and that’s something I could not have predicted.
And for what it’s worth, it’s already miles ahead of Last Call with Carson Daly. That guy fucking sucks.
