THREE TAKES ON the ascendancy of Jimmy Fallon to Conan (and the once-Dave) Late Night throne @NBC.
(Photo: Diane Bondareff/Associated Press)
Andrew Ryan has a take in the Globe that, to my great surprise, got me rooting for Fallon:
Demonstrating rare network foresight, NBC made its decision looking to snag the young and restless Web generation. Nice suit notwithstanding, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon will be a show aimed at younger viewers, most of whom network executives believe are watching TV and surfing the Web simultaneously.
“We grew up with the Internet,” says Fallon, 34. “I'm into tech and gadgets and I want those kind of people on the show, whether it's Bill Gates or the guy who designed the new Palm Pre. I want to know what makes it so great. I think that's interesting for people who are awake at 12:30 a.m.”
The new and improved Late Night will still boast some of the standard antiquities – the big host desk, the studio audience setup, the wacky staff announcer, the house band (Fallon himself approached the hip-hop group The Roots for the honour) – while simultaneously moving into heretofore untouched pop-culture areas. Say, for example, video games.
“Video games are important to a lot of people these days,” Fallon says. “The video game industry now makes more money than the movie business. We want to cover the big video game premieres almost like they were movie premieres.”
Then there's the always-reliable Bill Carter's insider-y version in the NYTimes:
He said the intimacy of late-night shows demands early modulating. “First you ask, ‘Can I come into your house?’ After a while you take your shoes off, you have a couple of drinks, and by the end of the night you’re singing and dancing, and it’s crazy. You just have to figure a way to get into the house.”
So, yes: first a monologue emphasizing the day’s events, perhaps as long as 13 minutes. Mr. Fallon has been polishing his stand-up skills in clubs. Then some other comedy ideas, which he hopes will eventually include out-of-studio pieces. “You look at Conan’s ‘best of” clips, it’s mostly remotes,” he said. “We got to get out there.”
Then the guests. Mr. Fallon said he decided to “call in favors” early. So his old “SNL” partner from “Weekend Update,” Tina Fey, is on Night 2.
The guest list on opening night includes Robert De Niro, Justin Timberlake (talking, not singing) and Van Morrison, singing “Sweet Thing” from his classic album “Astral Weeks.”
Mr. Fallon has already dived into the Web. He is the first late-night host to start a video blog, latenightwithjimmyfallon.com/video, running snippets of comedy bits and background reports on how he was building the show. He even took his blog followers along when he had eye surgery.
Mr. Fallon has also been courting fans through Facebook and Twitter, where at last count he had more than 100,000 people following him. He said that Questlove, the leader of the Roots, his house band, will be “sending tweets during the show.”
“The Internet has been awesome,” he added. “They’ve got my back.”
And finally, in the same paper, Allessandra Stanley's lament over how Late Night remains the province of the White Male. (That's probably not a totally fair characterization of the article...especially toward the end, her characterization of the tropes of Late Night are quite winning.)
The charm isn’t seeing a host discomfited by an ill-prepared celebrity, it’s watching an experienced entertainer draw a sliver of comedy out of an uncomfortable moment or humorless guest. It’s diverting, and effortlessly so. The hosts — male, middle-American, middlebrow, middle-aged or close to it — are easy to like: subversive enough to poke holes in pomposity or pretension and make us laugh, but not so offbeat or marginal that they seem to be laughing at us. Mr. Fallon may seem more boyish and antic than his predecessors, but he shares their engaging good manners. (He made Martha Stewart laugh while making chili on her show, and she is rarely distracted.)
Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, meanwhile, are too steeped in political satire and current events to let us forget our troubles. And the best comedians — Larry David, Dave Chappelle or Sarah Silverman — don outré comic personas that discomfit as well as amuse.
A host who is daringly different breaches the contract: it’s not civility, it’s the breakdown, and however funny and cathartic that can be for a while, the pleasure is not a lasting one. In 1986 Joan Rivers tried to host her own late-night show on Fox and flopped. Mr. Chappelle was brilliant on his own Comedy Central series, but he flamed out after two years and disappeared.
Talk show hosts are just that: hosts who make viewers feel welcome. They are not angry, eccentric or crazy (at least, not on the air). At the close of each show they convince us that everything is all right in the world, and Mommy and Daddy still love each other.
(For my part, I think Chelsea Handler notwithstanding, any man who's ever seen three women cut up a fourth on her appearance and choice of footwear understands why a broad-based female late night host is a way tougher sell. I'm pretty sure Senator Pam Wallin is still smarting over all those letters she'd get about her haircuts.)
All I know is, as a once and future insomniac otherwise subject to the hegemony of infomercials (I am NOT buying the %@#% snuggie, OK?) the late night shows are a godsend. Bring on the video game premiere, Jimmy. I'll give it a shot.
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