Is everyone excited for the debut of Late Night W/Jimmy Fallon?

What I liked about Conan was that he took a lot of risks most late night hosts wouldn't (Preparation H man, for instance) that could have (and often did) bomb but even in the most unfunny moments, he would just smile as if to say "Wow, that really sucked ass" and you had to laugh. You just had to.

By comparison, Leno does the same six skits now that he did in 1997. Are they funny? Sometimes. Do they suck? More often than not. Does he make you laugh anyway? Not usually.

If you want to really see the difference between Leno, O'Brien and Daly, watch the monologues. To put it in baseball terms, Leno basically goes up to bat with the winning run at second looking for the safe play just to get him to third. O'Brien goes looking up looking to either hit it out of the park or miss so bad that it's fun to watch anyway.

Daly? Well, Daly goes to the plate and tries to hit the ball with one hand. When he hits, it makes you go "Wow, I can't believe that worked". When he doesn't, you go "Well, what did you expect?"

 

I will never, EVER watch Jimmy Fallon. Not even to watch him fail.

 

Did someone tell you to say that?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/28/arts/television/28fallon.html?_r=1&ref=television

 

So if Tina Fey goes on tomorrow and kills it, what are the Vegas odds that Fallon is replaced by her in two or three years once 30 Rock gets stale?

 

Gets??



Sorry, I had to.

 

No problem, I'm not the world's biggest 30 Rock fan. I watched Season One and chuckled a bit but never considered it "Must See TV".

The show gets rave reviews and awards though, so something must be going right. Eventually, though, it will fall away like all shows do and I think as soon as Fey gets freed up, she'd be a damn good candidate to have her own show. She's already proven to be a media darling and certainly has the writing chops to give Fallon or Ferguson or Kimmel a run for their money.

Oh, and the chance to a female break into the late night hosting gig, especially one with Fey's appeal, is too good for someone like Fox or ABC to pass up. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if she took over for Stewart on the Daily Show when he moves on.

 

Yeah, he was nervous, and yeah, his bit with DeNiro was uncomfortable, but for as funny as Conan is now, his show was dogshit for the first four or five years.

Fallon has his own thing and all, but I think it's incredibly ridiculous to judge the long-term success on just the first show.

 

WFW.

I think NBC will give him his chance simply because their refusal to bump Carson would look like a bad move if the Fallon thing doesn't work out.

That's not to say they won't bounce him if a better option comes down the pipe though.

 

I disagree that Conan was dogshit for four or five years. His first year? Yeah.

After that, he settled into a groove. I like his Andy years better than his solo years.

 

I like the back-and-forth that he and Andy had and I hope they recapture that on TTS. That being said, I feel Conan got better with age. Once he really settled into his role, he took the ball and ran with it so to speak.

When Richter (sp*) first left the show, it took Conan a little while to adjust and I believe his most recent stuff was better as a whole than his earlier stuff.

 

When did Kenny Bania (fixed) get a TV show?

Man seeing Fail-on come through the curtains and read the cue cards and emphasize the wrong word on the punchline, it was bad. DeNiro was better in King of Comedy.
My biggest problem with Fallon come out (and Bobby Jindal knows this) is when other people have built you up, sometimes just the walk out can kill you.
I don't get why he was given the spot. If NBC had a bunch of people come in and do test runs and he was the best, I'd get it. But it sounded like Lorne Michaels just said he's the guy and even after months of prep, he still came off as woefully unprepared. I'm just glad I didn't see any of his stand-up when he was preparing for the gig.
I've seen a number of failed talk shows first eps - Sajak, Chevy Chase, The Magic Hour (how appropriate that Magic had an ad in one of the breaks). This is right up there. Though I've got to admit, Sajak seemed to be the most at ease of the three, I mean four.

 

Who the hell is Kenny Bana?

Do you mean Kenny Bania? The guy from Seinfeld? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenny_Bania). If so, huh?