Jimmy Fallon’s Uncomfortable Late Night Debut

As Carson Daly demonstrates on a nightly basis, you don’t have to be funny, engaging or a good interviewer to have your own late-night talk show on NBC.  Jimmy Fallon continues that tradition, this week taking over the 12:30 time slot vacated by the newly-promoted Conan O’Brien. 

Though Monday’s inaugural  Late Night with Jimmy Fallon seemed serviceable on paper─featuring Robert De Niro, Justin Timberlake and  Van Morrison─the jittery, sweaty, nervous and not-so-endearingly timid Fallon could not execute, making the show unbearable before the first guest ever appeared.  Of course, it’s not fair to judge Fallon based on the first show.  Keenan Ivory Wayans, Magic Johnson and Chevy Chase each had awkward late night debuts as well, and they lasted for several weeks. 

Once I sort of got beyond Fallon’s stiff, distractingly uncomfortable presence and adjusted to his 10-word-per-second delivery, I was able to make out some of the opening monologue.  Here’s the highlight:  

In California, a 16-year-old boy had sex with his 24-year-old teacher. Traumatizing. Doctors are saying it will take years of therapy just to wipe the smile off his face.

This is the kind of late-night edgy that’s supposed to get the college crowd to tune in at 12:30.  The rest of the jokes were of the Jay Leno circa writer’s strike caliber. Compounding the predictable, uninspired material was Fallon’s amateurish, dreadfully obvious reading of it.  Whatever preparation he’s had for this show, he clearly skipped teleprompter class.  It was not so long ago that our TV talk show hosts were better with teleprompters than our presidents.

In an unprecedented move, the show may have actually jumped the shark less than twenty minutes into its first episode with a segment called “Lick it for $10” ─think Monte Hall meets bad SNL writing (legendary grossly overrated Lorne Michaels is the show’s Executive Producer). Here, audience members were given $10 to lick things people would not normally lick, like a copy machine.  How’s that for hip counter-culture a la a young Dave Letterman?

Sweating, mumbling, stammering, losing his train of thought, and giggling like an awkward schoolgirl who just said “poopie,” Fallon tediously labored through his mostly-scripted interview with the personality-deficient Robert De Niro. Perhaps anticipating disaster, Fallon pre-recorded a video vignette with De Niro called “Space Train” to be inserted as comedy filler in the middle of the interview.  Though it was unfunny, dull and unacceptably embarrassing given the amount of time Fallon and his writers had to prepare and test the material, it may still be De Niro’s best performance since 1995.

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Justin Timberlake provided the show with its best moments─faint praise for a show with people licking copiers.  Confident, relaxed, and organic, he seemed much more at ease in the host’s domain than the host. The contrast between his demeanor and Fallon’s left me wondering how Fallon got the gig in the first place (and how much coke he may have been on during taping).  The best host in the building was sitting in the guest’s chair.  

After Timberlake and Fallon recycled some SNL bit they once did together, Timberlake did an impersonation of John Mayer─which I didn’t understand because I don’t acknowledge John Mayer (but the audience seemed to love it)─and Michael McDonald.  McDonald was spot on and funny, almost  as funny as the year-old Family Guy version which gave new life to Michael McDonald impersonations.  

Just when the show was building a little energy with Timberlake pushing Fallon into the background, enter Van Morrison to disappoint everyone who stayed up through 55 minutes of dreck to watch him perform. Though he was kind enough to pick Sweet Thing, a song from his exceptional 1968 Astral Weeks album, he wasn’t kind enough to remain sober prior to getting on stage.  He barely moved, slurred his words and appeared to take a brief nap in the middle of the song.  

Yes, Conan O’Brien was abysmal in the beginning as well.  But he had the excuse of very limited on-camera experience going in.  The bar is set higher for an SNL alum who, even if he can’t interview, should be more comfortable with the rest of the now well-established late-night talk show formula.  Moreover, Fallon may not have that same slack on his NBC leash that O’Brien had.  O’Brien didn’t have to compete for market share with  Facebook, Grand Theft Auto, TiVo, two more capable, established hosts in the same time slot and dozens of new cable/satellite networks.  For its part, NBC has to sell ad space in a much different economic climate today than in 1993 when O’Brien debuted.  Ultimately, the network may not have the same patience to allow Fallon to grow into the role (if he’s even capable) that it had for O’Brien.

Even Fallon’s built-in audience of gay men, sensitive metrosexuals and googly-eyed, twenty-something women is sure to quickly grow tired of the awe-shucks, self-effacing, dopey-guy-with-messy-hair shtick unless the show fundamentally improves. O’Brien at least had good writing to compensate for some of his early shortcomings.  Fallon doesn’t have that luxury.