It's Official: Leno out, Fallon in

I never found Fallon to be that entertaining. Even his Capitol One ads are pretty lame.

 

His show has gotten a lot better. I'm not a huge fan. He's a little too nice for my tastes, but I don't think he's being fake either, which has been a lot of the reason why some don't like Leno.

If someone watches the Tonight Show because they think Jay Leno is the best of the late night guys, they're probably pretty likely to watch Fallon over Letterman or Kimmel or even Jon Stewart.

 

Not at all. A lovely use of the blue.

 

I miss Dennis Miller Live. Some of his best stuff before he got all political.

 

I remember seeing Fallon his first year on SNL. Not in a million years did I think he'd be doing this.

Not that he hasn't honed his TV skills. He's just a unique choice for *this* gig.

 

The question is who is going to watch the 11:30 show. If you are a Leno viewer, Fallon is the best alternative and he does bring some part of a young crowd with him.

I am a Daily Show/Colbert viewer, but 99% of the time on DVR. I only watch the others if there is a clip mentioned on the web which is funny.

 

I used to DVR Kimmel, Letterman and TDS and Colbert. The only ones I still DVR are Kimmel and TDS. Letterman just isn't as funny as he used to be, and Colbert's act has gotten a bit stale.

 

Never knew Leno was on Good Times.

 

It's interesting because if you hear SNL vets talk, they go on and on about how Lorne Michaels' biggest pet peeve was cast members who laughed during sketches. Apparently, he once tore Spade a new one for laughing during one of Farley's "van down by the river" sketches. IIRC, it was the one with Christina Applegate, where she had to hide her face because she was laughing so hard too...

Fallon was notorious for laughing during sketches, but Michaels, for whatever reason, always gave him a pass because he liked him.

The fact that Michaels is now producing The Tonight Show will help Fallon out tremendously. Even if he fails miserably at first, I think he'll be given time to build his audience. I don't think he'll have to worry until Letterman retires. When that happens and CBS hires his replacement, if Fallon loses to him, then that's where he could be gone in a few years... I don't think that will happen though, especially if CBS gives the job to Ferguson.

Fallon will probably follow Leno's lead to an extent and get panned by critics but will play better in the Midwest than Letterman or Kimmel.

Conan was set up to fail. Fallon is not being set up to fail.

 

I think he still is great and a better 30 minutes than TDS, mostly because I think that the correspondents on TDS are average. He also is able to do great interviews while in character. Jon Stewart is able to go deeper on serious issues, but I think that he's engaged less in the typical interview.

 

My biggest complaint about TDS and Colbert is while they can occasionally grab the big guest, most of the time, it's someone who almost no one has heard of, usually an author or something like that... I generally only watch the Stewart behind the desk portion of TDS, anything else depends on what it is or who the guest is...