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tominator89

Late Night With Jimmy Fallon

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Fallon will have to find his dark side to succeed. It's there with every successful host - Leno's condescending, Letterman's sarcastic, Kimmel's an asshole, Ferguson's a dirty old man, Conan's self-deprecating. Fallon's just a bright, giggle kid whose happy to be there. He needs an edge.

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Watched this last night. The interviews were actually pretty good (although it helped that he seemed to be friends with both guests), and I really think that'll end up being his strong point because it's the one thing that doesn't expose his chronic inability to keep a straight face. The bits weren't anything special, but I've certainly seen stuff just as unfunny and poorly-conceived as the chair bit on Conan, Letterman, etc. It was how totally uncomfortable he looked as the whole thing bombed that made that chair segment sort of cringeworthy. But it's only his second show, and it certainly wasn't as bad as I thought it might be.

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Fallon will have to find his dark side to succeed. It's there with every successful host - Leno's condescending, Letterman's sarcastic, Kimmel's an asshole, Ferguson's a dirty old man, Conan's self-deprecating. Fallon's just a bright, giggle kid whose happy to be there. He needs an edge.

 

Yeah, I definitely agree with this. Fallon has been self-deprecating a few times on the first couple shows, but it's more of a "man we're so new and awkward right now" sort of self-deprecation.

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Not good, hell get Crispin Glover to drop some LSD and come out as Rubin Farr, maybe that would make the show watchable.

His drug filled letterman appearance was one of the things that got letterman some early press: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxozBPWpfYU...feature=related

 

He would probably come on if you let him sing his hit single "Clowny Clown Clown"

 

 

I do miss the old days when Glover decided not to do the other Back to the Future movies, instead making the LSD classic Rubin and Ed.

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I will say he has two main things going for him.

 

1. The Root's as the in-house show band.

2. He's showing potential that he might become a great interviewer one day.

 

It's past the initial funny in a trainwreck way portion of the show. The comedy isn't there, his skits are flat... this show is kind of there right now. He's not annoying or outright terrible... he's just there right now. Star Ocean is right he's going to have to find his darkside, and sooner than later.

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Yeah, boy I watched last night for the first time and it wasn't good. The Asshole Animals sketch was just awful. Weak premise, even weaker sketch. But as a whole, it wasn't an outright disaster. There's some potential though. I agree with pretty much everything KOAB said, The Roots are easily the best band in late night and he is a surprisingly decent interviewer.

 

The audience isn't really familiar with Jimmy and Jimmy hasn't really developed a rhythm quite yet like all of the other hosts have over the years. He's got some potential but he's going to need some time to develop. I don't think he's going to get 2-3 years to build up a rhythm like Conan did though, he's got two formidable competitors in the second half of Kimmel and Craig Ferguson (who was beating Conan on occasion) plus cable plus the internet. I'm not sure how much time they're going to give him in this day and age. Depends on the ratings after the "new show" rub wears off and Conan and Leno move into their new time slots.

 

Also did anybody else think that the crazy guy fencing Jimmy in Conan's old studio was going to be revealed as Conan himself?

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The Roots is the best thing this show has going for it.

Agreed, the improvised songs bit they did about random Audience members was awesome. They even did country!

 

Still like Kimmel more, but Fallon is funny, depending on his guest. His monolouges still need polishing, maybe when he stops being so nervous.

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I tend not to want to give Jimmy the benefit of the "Oh, it's only his first couple of episodes, give him a break" excuse or comparing him to Conan's early stuff. Conan was a total unknown when he started. Yeah, he was a writer for some very popular shows, but no one knew who he was. Jimmy Fallon has had leads in movies, been on the cover of numerous magazines like Entertainment Weekly and was the breakout of SNL after Will Ferrell left. He's an entertainer with a name out there and considering the lead time he was given to prepare, he shouldn't be putting out bad shows. How long did it take Kimmel and Ferguson to get settled?

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See, the thing is just because you're a talented entertainer (and believe it or not, Fallon is somewhat talented) doesn't mean you'll immediately make a great talk show host. It's one of the toughest on-screen jobs in entertainment. Look at all the talented comics/actors who've had really shitty talk shows; Chevy Chase, Martin Short, Jerry Lewis, I'd could go on all day. In fact, the precedent for well known entertainers doing talk shows is not good. Leno and Kimmel are both exceptions I guess but they were basically famous for being themselves.

 

I remember Kimmel not being very good for the first year or so but that may have also been because of the fact that he had some awful guests his first year or so. Craig Ferguson got very good, very fast. It's hard to believe he only started three years ago or so. It's too bad he's already said he doesn't want to move up to 11:30.

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Kimmel was awesome when he first started. It was when ABC cut him off at the knees and the show got pushed back because of the war in Iraq, it started to suffer.

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Craig Ferguson got very good, very fast. It's hard to believe he only started three years ago or so.

 

Minor point, but he's been on since January 2005, so it's now been more than 4 years.

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Kimmel was awesome when he first started. It was when ABC cut him off at the knees and the show got pushed back because of the war in Iraq, it started to suffer.

Yea its been kind of tame recently. But I like his interview style and the fact that most of the guests wind up talking about something other then the thing they are promoting. Guillermo and Uncle Frank usually make the show for me. Though they definately miss something with the untimely death of Veatrice.

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Again offtopic, but on last night's Kimmel, actor Chris Mintz-Plasse (AKA McLovin) was teh second guest, after Cena. He told a story about presenting an award to Harrison Ford and how he gave this crazy funny speech. He saw Ford again the next day on the set of Kimmel's Parody video "I'm f*cking Ben Affleck" and Ford told him "Your speech was f*cking hilarious" This is notable only because the ABC censors must have been asleep and didn't bleep it out. Now Chris was doing a bad Ford Impersonation, but you could clearly hear the f-bomb there. Weird to see, since the show is taped earlier in the evening and all.

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Yeah, that was really surreal. I had to rewind it two or three times on the DVR just to make sure that was what he said. Really bizarre. I guess the censors were busy watching Obama on Leno.

 

Also RE: Last Night's Kimmel, I wonder if the the WWE folder is going nuts over Cena questioning The Rock's love of the biz?

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