Fallon Watch: Day 2.

Seeing as I have nothing else to watch at 11:30 I figure that I might as well make this a more or less regular thing now. I'm sure that I could tie this into tech somehow, but (let's face it) it would be a stretch at best.


Opening and Monologue

All thing considered this was a pretty good opening for ol'Jimmmy. The jokes funny as a whole and the crowd seemed to enjoy them. There was one awkward pause or two, but that's forgivable. Things seem to be looking up.

Rating: B-


Skits

Facebook Updates- Fallon started out with a parody of Facebook statuses. The bit wasn't especially interesting or funny at first, but got a bit better towards the end with audience members being "drunk" and "wearing their thongs backward. I couldn't help but notice that the transitioning between audience members was rough, but this is something that can be fixed with experience.

The crem de la crem of the segment (and possibly the show) was the final status update, featuring one Michael Bloomberg came up. Bloomberg cracked some jokes about the prior show and posed with Jimmy in front of such scenic locals as City Hall (meh), Castle Greyskull (Woot!), and Max Headroom (OMGWTFBBQ). Fallon may not be as "childish" as Conan, but if he sticks to 80's pop culture, we may have a winner.

Internet Video of the Day- In a word, bah. For starters, a good video needs no commentary. Next, Fallon's commentary only made it worse and the dancer wasn't terribly funny. Lastly, it wasn't that good of a video to begin with.

Rating: B+


Guests

Once again, I don't do celebrities. Fey was funny and had good chemistry with Fallon (Lord knows they should) and Bon Jovi talked a bit and sang. The Roots showed their sheer awesomeness once again by staying on top of Bon Jovi's spontaneous singing and sounding great doing it.

As for Santigold-




Well all in all, this was a huge improvement for Fallon. It's still rough and awkward at times, but Jimmy seems to be settling in.

Rating: B-



Fallon appears to be taking a milder approach to comedy than Conan did. If I had to guess, I'd say that he ends up being popular with the current high school crowd while the rest of the population shifts their attention forward a hour. I've got to say though, it must suck to be Carson Daily.

A Brief Review of Jimmy Fallon's First Show

Well last week we lost a great American hero, Conan O'Brian. America's favorite redhead handed in the reigns to what has become a comedic necessity for America's late night (read: college) television viewers. O'Brian leaves behind a specialized sort of comedy tooled for the "lol masturbating bear" crowd and up. The mantel of Late Night has been placed on SNL and weekend update regular, Jimmy Fallon. Fallon's opening show was last night and proved quite interesting. Since I'm still waiting for my service award to show up my TiVo is currently out of service. So if I missed a detail, bite me.

Opening

Conan makes a cameo in Jimmy's dressing room preshow and has a brief interchange with the new host. Fallon plays the straight man while Conan is his usual self. Apart from O'Brian's remark "Leno's not going anywhere," the skit is ultimately forgettable.

Rating: C-

Monologue and associated skits

Fallon opens the show with a solid monologue that turned out better than I expected. It's a bit early in the game to determine how Fallon's jokes will pan out in the future, but a few of his jokes show promise. One noteworthy element was Fallon "slow jamming" the news with house band "The Roots" backing him up (more on them later). I enjoyed this quite a bit. The bit was on the rough side, but with more practice and fine tuning I think that this will be a show staple.

As with Conan and Leno before him, Fallon opted for the Jokes-Skits-Guests-Music format. The two skits, "Target Demographic" and "Lick if for 10" both were fairly weak, but have room for potential. When the demographic is "Tuba players from West Blockton" I think we will have a winner. "Lick it for 10" had a few laughs but wasn't anything special.

Rating C-

Guests

Wow, this wasn't pretty. Fallon spent the majority of this segment stumbling across lines and making everyone uncomfortable. I let Adrian handle the world of celebrities so I'll keep this short. Robert De Niro was uninteresting and unimpressive apart from the "Space Train" bit.



I hope this was intentionally bad because it was laughably so. Otherwise......

Timberlake on the other hand stole the show. I've never cared for anyone or anything associated with 90's pop music, but J's parody of The Beegees and improvised Budweiser jingles were hilarious and nearly made up for Fallon's frequent fumbles.

Rating: C+

Music

This was one of the few high points of the show. Jimmy's house band, "The Roots" were a breath of fresh air and better than any other house band I've seen (Carson era on) and considerably better that a good number of musical guests. They kept quiet for the most part, but when they played........man. They're keepers. I can't say the same about Van Morrison. From what I could tell it was a good performance, but he dosen't fall within my preferred musical style so I'm not a liberty to pass judgment.

Rating: A+


Fallon had a rocky start but that is to be expected. Just try and tell me you could pull off something like that without a hitch. The main problem that Fallon faces with critics is that he is filling in the 6 foot 4 pompadour sporting hole left by Conan. Jimmy is not Conan and never will be, as soon as he and his critics accept this things will go along swimmingly. Stay tuned and give him some time, Conan started out pretty rough too but look how he turned out.


Overall rating: C+/B-