I’m pretty sure he’s being sarcastic. Stop and think about that ‘rolling in his grave’ thing. It’s funny.
I like Jay and I like Jimmy. I don’t think NBC will lose either way they go. Leno had a nice run, maybe it’s time for him to retire. If all the Conan fans had actually watched him when he had Tonight, maybe he’d still be there.
yeah that part was a joke but I still don’t like Jimmy Fallon
I didn’t like him on SNL and so when he got the Late Night show I didn’t watch it because I disliked him so much so I’ve only ever seen one of his shows all the way through (and that was because I was at the taping) and very few clips of it in passing flipping through channels so maybe I’m not giving him a fair chance. Is he actually better as a late night tv host?
To me, Craig Ferguson is the only one even worth watching and at this point watching him is like watching every other show he’s taped. Fallon isn’t worth a bucket of warm comedian’s spit. Like the old “not even wrong” bit, Leno’s “not even unfunny.”
Late Night with Jimmy Fallon is the best late night talk show
he’s not the greatest at interviewing, but he has by far the hippest show, as such he resonates with me more than the Letterman, Ferguson, Leno, Kimmel, and Conan
hippest band, hippest looking set, hippest games and skits
another vote for Craig Ferguson in spite* of this. he can bitch and rant about the studio executives while standing in pitch darkness during a blackout and it’ll be entertaining.
- or is it because of this? that he is still entertaining with no material? i think he still uses that picture of Paul McCartney.
I actually find Marley23’s opinion to be a fairly popularly expressed opnion. Seems I know plenty of people who didn’t like him on SNL who ended up liking him as talk show host.
Funny or not, good interviewer or not, there was something very genuine about him from the beginning- like he truly was very excited and felt lucky to be able to have cool celebrities to interview. Kinda like a real life version of the celebrity interviews Chris Farley used to do in character on SNL.
Liking him or not is a matter or personal preference, but this:
Fallon is probably the most “shared” through social media. He is also the best at getting celebrities to participate in skits. And the hipness of his house band permeates the show. No one is going to put together a band cooler than The Roots.
Like Marley23 said, The Tonight Show isn’t what all of America watches before bed- as was the case long long ago- and like silenus said, cable and especially the internet changed everything. People post links to Jimmy Fallon skits in a way that they just don’t do with Letterman, Kimmel, Conan, especially not Leno, but even moreso than Ferguson or Jon Stewart. Colbert may get shared on a nearly even level with Fallon, but he’s the only one in contention- and his show and Stewart’s show are not of an analogous format to the traditional couch and desk late night show.
Looking at Conan to replace Leno was in line with following the “old rules” which is why it failed. Bringing Leno back was an attempt to cling to the old rules. Looking at Fallon to replace Leno actually shows some understanding that the game has changed.
I agree, though Jimmy Kimmel isn’t far behind, IMO. I imagine Kimmel’s move to 11:35 might have prompted NBC to make this move to be competitive for the younger demographics.
Yep, all of this. I was very cynical of Fallon at first, and after watching his first few shows I figured he wouldn’t last long. But I started seeing bits and sketches from his show that friends were talking about and sharing via youtube links, facebook, etc., so I decided to give his show another chance. I really like it. Leno, Letterman, and Conan have just been going through the motions for years. Even Ferguson feels kind of stale. Fallon is not great at delivering the monologue, but part of his charm is that he doesn’t seem too polished. The celebrity guests on his show seem more at ease, more “themselves” than when they appear on other talk shows. The Roots are cool and the comedy bits they are involved in are usually pretty good. Fallon’s show is just plain fun to watch.
I just don’t get NBC’s shitty treatment of Leno. The guy has consistently delivered the #1 late night show for at least 15 years. Letterman beat him the first few years and since then it’s been primarily Leno’s time slot. Letterman occasionally beats him with a special guest.
The reward for that is getting dumped for Conan and now Fallon.
Keeping a show fresh and interesting five nights a week, year after year isn’t easy. Maybe someday Leno will be appreciated for his hard work. Hollywood is one of the few industrys where age bias is still tolerated. Throw out the old guy, he’s not worth a damn. A shame and its illegal in most jobs.
I like Jimmy Fallon’s show. He’s a good comic too.
NBC has treated Leno damned fine.
They didn’t “dump” him for Conan. The transition was set years in advance to coincide with the end of Leno’s then current contract. When it was time for the transition Leno still wanted to keep doing a show, so they gave him one. Then they gave him his old show back.
They’re not dumping him for Fallon either. The transition is being announced 18 months in advance and will coincide with the already scheduled end of Leno’s current contract.
You’re sort of right in that they have once (and maybe twice now) put a higher priority on their post-Leno plans than they have on Leno himself, and you could get the impression they are either taking for granted or don’t appreciate him that much. It’s not as if NBC has a ton of other successful shows right now. On the other hand they’ve been paying him $30 million a year for 20 years. I wish someone would treat me that badly. They’re also allowed to think of themselves and they don’t owe him a show or another contract.
Anybody interested in the politics of Late Night should read Bill Carter’s"The War for Late Night: When Leno Went Early and the World Went Crazy." It’s a fascinating read. I haven’t read his account of the Leno/Letterman ordeal, “The Late Shift,” but I imagine it’s also full of juicy details of the inner workings of NBC and Late Night.
I read it and that book explains NBC panicked when Letterman began negotiations to defect to CBS. The book claims there were some executives that wanted to dump Leno then and keep Letterman. At the the time Leno’s show was only in the 1st year. Ironically the story repeated itself with Conan. The Network panicked and dumped him in less than a year. It was a PR fiasco.
Network business practices are not very good. It’s no surprise they are losing their audience.
Oh come on, he was hi-LAR-ious in Taxi!
This is very true. I frequently see clips of Fallon’s show on various websites, blogs, and Facebook. I almost never see clips of Leno shared, other than sometimes when he interviews a celebrity popular on the internet. I’ve seen slightly more clips from Letterman than Leno, but it’s usually just the musical performances and sometimes the Top 10 lists.
I’ve heard various things about how eventually ratings will be counted in other ways, not just by Neilsen viewers. I don’t know how soon it will be, but once ratings start taking into account the online viewers and how clips are watched and shared, then Fallon will look even better than he does now.
Sure, that help explains why they are timing the transition then, and also Kimmel’s move to the competing time slot is a factor. But neither takes into consideration that Leno is winning the time slot, consistently.
That’s the thing, that is exactly what NBC was afraid of last time, which is why they gave him the 9 pm (Central) show.
They seem to be repeating the mistake - looking to replace Leno before Leno is ready to go, afraid he can’t pull the demographic that he keeps winning.
And yet he keeps winning the time slot. If Leno is so unfunny, why is his show more popular than anything else on at that time?
I like his show, I watch it, I laugh. Sure, some of the jokes are dumb, sure many of them are obvious. I still laugh.
Sure, Leno’s existing contract was set to end and they planned a replacement host to pick up at that time rather than waiting to negotiate an extension/new contract with Leno for that slot. They didn’t look to see if Leno wanted to remain, they were more worried that they’d lose Conan and were thinking they needed a younger, hipper host for The Tonight Show. That’s not exactly “dumping” Leno, if you mean kicking him out early, but it’s not exactly supporting Leno either, being more concerned with their future possibilities than what Leno was accomplishing at the time.
And yet if Leno is not ready to retire from late night television, they’re setting themselves up for another mess.
They don’t “owe” Leno anything beyond the existing contract, but it is shortsighted to lose a proven time slot winner who isn’t ready to go and may very likely set up in competition to their show. They tried to game the system last time and make a different deal to support Leno, which didn’t really work in the new time slot, and Conan didn’t pan out, so they undid the mistake. This looks suspiciously similar.
Will it play out the same? Maybe not. But it certainly has all the hallmarks of the same thing repeating itself.
I refer you to our friend Sam Lowry:
Measuring who watches live T.V. is increasingly irrelevant. The networks and the advertisers haven’t fully figured out yet exactly what the new game is but they’re learning. Step one is to figure out the new game, step two is to figure out how best to monetize it. Even though they’re fumbling to function in the new world, they’re realizing the old world is fading away. The ad buys for live T.V. will become increasingly less valuable. The networks have to learn a new model for how to sell their product.
. . . is exactly the smart thing to do- so smart that I wouldn’t be surprised if they coward out on it again.
too much of Leno’s humor is just plain mean for me.
Love Jimmy Fallon’s show - sure he’s terrible with the monologue, but everything else is good. I find his stuff new and fresh. His musical bits are wonderful.
I love Craig Ferguson, but once a week is more than enough. too repititious. (sure I’ll feel that way about Fallon sometime too, but not yet.)
Conan I never found funny, but I thought he was treated very badly.
Blaming someone for not hosting a late-night show as well as Johnny Carson is like blaming someone for playing baseball as well as Willie Mays. Johnny was as unique then as he is now. Further, the fragmentation of the media since Carson’s day makes it impossible for one performer to garner the audience he did.
I’m not a Jimmy Fallon fan either, but the days when a television show could be an institution like *The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson *have been over for some time.
Huh, I didn’t realize there was a book about the Leno 10pm experiment. But the Late Shift was also turned into one of the all-time memorable HBO produced movies with Kathy Bates as Leno’s agent and John Michael Higgins as Letterman before he hit the minor big time with Best in Show. Famously Higgins was invited on the Late Show as a guest but Dave allegedly purposefully ran the show late to bump him.