There’s a new man on late night television. Well, at least at 11:35 p.m. EST. Jimmy Fallon has taken the leap to hosting The Tonight Show, leaving behind his old show Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Seth Meyers will serve as Fallon’s replacement with Late Night with Seth Meyers. This new duo seems to be spicing up late night so far, and Fallon in particular is shaping up to be rather stiff competition to both David Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel.
To begin with a monumental triumph for Fallon in the late night sphere, the filming of The Tonight Show returned to New York after a 40 year transplant in Los Angeles.
In his opening monologue on his first episode as host of The Tonight Show, Fallon went into his background, giving a brief biography peppered with some witty jokes while also paying homage to previous Tonight Show hosts. “I’d like to thank all those who came before me: Steve Allen, Jack Paar, Johnny Carson, Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien and Jay Leno,” Fallon said. “I just want to do the best I can and to take care of this show for awhile.”
In the two weeks since the debut of his new show, Fallon has definitely found his groove. In fact, it feels almost the same as Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, it’s just an hour earlier with a nicer, slightly larger set. (The curtains that Fallon enters from are reminiscent of Johnny Carson’s set up when he hosted The Tonight Show, which I found to be an excellent decor decision.) Many of the same segments are there, such as “Thank You Notes,” which suits Fallon well. It also worked to his advantage that he now has even more access to A-list guests to bring on his show than he could before. In fact, Fallon’s inaugural first weeks were chock full of celebrities and personalities—guests such as First Lady Michelle Obama, Will Smith (his “Evolution of Hip Hop Dancing” number with Fallon went viral), Emma Thompson (who is always hilarious), Will Ferrell (he dressed in drag for “Ew” and ice skated to the Downton Abbey theme song), Bradley Cooper, Shaquille O’Neal, Kristen Wiig, Reese Witherspoon, Justin Timberlake (“History of Rap—Part 5”), Usher and even Olympic gold medalist Mikaela Shiffrin, among many others. Being a fan of Fallon for awhile, I am definitely excited to see him doing well in this new time slot.
Meyers, on the other hand, is struggling in my eyes. While it is his first two weeks in this new hosting position and there are bound to be kinks, I feel that he has a few things going against him. First, the set looks a bit claustrophobic and somewhat cheesy. Regardless whether the decision was made on purpose or not, it gives off a slightly awkward vibe. And while the band 8G, led by fellow SNL alumnus Fred Armisen, is awesome, they should probably play more often during the show. When looking back on some of the highlights of Meyers’ first two weeks, one segment that he introduced was called “Fake or Florida.” While the premise of this segment was interesting, the execution was lacking. The fact that it was blatantly staged and ran for eight minutes only made this “game show” slow and awkward and not that funny.
However, having said that, because it is the beginning of Meyers’ new venture, more time should be allotted to him before any solid judgments are made. Meyers has got at least one thing going for him—he interviewed one of my favorite duos, Sir Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellen, which was a great treat for me.
I think this late night set up is a positive addition to current programming. Of course, whether this line up ends up working out for both the hosts and the audience is still uncertain, there is always hope and hopefully laughs along the way. As Fallon said in his first monologue of The Tonight Show, he just wants to “make you laugh and put a smile on your face so that you go to sleep with a smile on your face and live a longer life. Isn’t that the whole goal here, is to have fun?” I couldn’t agree more.
Claire Farrow can be reached at claire.farrow@spartans.ut.edu