Abysmal. Horrendous. Atrocious. Gut wrenching. Terrible. All of these words aptly describe the first show of “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” that aired last night (March 2, 2008) on NBC. I couldn’t believe how bad it was.
For some odd reason, Fallon was picked to replace the witty and talented Conan O’Brien as host of “Late Night” after O’Brien was tapped to take over the Jay Leno Show. Both are Saturday Night Live alums; O’Brien a writer, Fallon an actor. But that is where the commonalities end.
Fallon’s first show was about as bad and unentertaining as a show could possibly get. The highlight of the show was right at the beginning with a skit featuring O’Brien cleaning out his dressing room while Fallon talked to him. In the sketch, Fallon asked Conan if he would like to watch the show. Conan had no interest. This set the tone for the rest of the show.
The monologue
Fallon’s monologue was terrible. I don’t know who was writing his jokes, but none of them were funny. Most were political jokes. At the beginning of the monologue, Fallon joked that Rush Limbaugh called him up and told him that he wished that he would fail. Not funny. Not only wasn’t it funny, but I will bet the vast majority of the viewers had no idea what the joke was a reference to. Many of them might not even know who Rush Limbaugh is. Later in the monologue, Fallon made a lame and predictable joke about President Barack Obama’s budget and its “$1.7 trillion” deficit. “Brought to you by China,” Fallon said. There is nothing funny about an incompetent fool bankrupting the country. Nor was there anything funny about Fallon’s crappy political jokes with their predictable punch lines.
During his monologue, Fallon appeared nervous. This was odd to me because Fallon has a lot of experience performing before a live audience from his days on SNL. Fallon spent five or six seasons on SNL. He is a veteran performer. There should be no reason for him to be nervous. I thought he might have been pretending to be nervous, that is, until I saw what followed.
Fallon did a song about Obama’s stimulus plan and the Republican opposition to it, mentioning the opposition of Republican governors in particular. He offered some sort of advice to Nancy Pelosi in the ditty. The song was horrible. It was absolutely terrible. Not funny, not witty, just plain bad. I think he called it “Slow Jam The News” or something. Whatever they call it, they should take it out back and shoot it as quickly as possible. It was terrible. I don’t know who wrote that song, but they should be fired immediately. Hopefully, this segment will not continue for long.
I don’t find much humor in politics. I don’t want to be inundated with it when I am watching TV. I don’t watch much TV, but when I do, I am looking for an escape or a little levity to brighten my day. I don’t need to hear crap about stimulus plans, budget deficits, or anything else. Jokes about a senator soliciting gay sex in a men’s restroom are funny; jokes about budget deficits are not.
Sketch
After the monologue concluded, they did a sort of a fake commercial sketch. It was about the demographic they were targeting, the “Blond Mothers” demo. It was terrible. Who decided to put this on the air?
Stupid game
Somebody with absolutely no talent whatsoever came up with a game for Fallon to play with some audience members. It was called “Lick It For Ten”. The terrible band even played a theme song for the game. Three supposed audience members, possibly paid actors, were called out from the audience to come onto the stage to play the game. In the game, the contestants were offered a whopping $10 to lick something with their tongues. Not only was the game stupid, but it was nothing more than a product placement for the items to be licked complete with their retail prices.
The first guy licked a lawn mower. After licking the mower, they did a “super sexy” slow motion replay of the guy licking the mower. Wow, how lame can you get? Is a slow motion replay of a guy licking a lawn mower supposed to be funny? The second contestant licked a combination printer-scanner. The third contestant licked a gold fish bowl.
Does that sound entertaining to you? I cannot believe that somebody was paid money to think up something so stupid, or that somebody actually approved it for air.
The band
The band performing the live music for the show is called “The Roots” and they are just as bad as everything else. They are a black group and perform music that would best be described as funky, almost 1970s style music with lots of wah-wah pedal in it. They do not fit the show.
Conan had “Max Weinberg and the Max Weinberg Seven” doing the music and they were great. Not only did they keep the show lively, usually performing covers of upbeat classic rock songs that were easily identifiable and well-known, they were also part of the show, often appearing in sketches or acting as comedic foils. I don’t see this happening with “The Roots”.
First guest Robert De Niro
Legendary actor Robert De Niro was the first guest of the evening. He was on to plug the TriBeCa Film Festival in New York, as if anyone watching the show cared. During his interview, he seemed disinterested and like he didn’t want to be there. I can’t say that I blamed him. Fallon’s interviewing skills have not developed yet. Not that they ever will. The interview was bad, De Niro’s demeanor was bad, and for some strange reason, his chair seemed to be slightly in front of Fallon’s so he had to look back at the host.
Fallon did a “questions with one word answers” line of questioning with De Niro. He didn’t seem to participate much.
As the interview was winding down, Fallon and De Niro did lame impressions of each other. It was absolutely horrible.
At the end of the interview, they showed an incredibly bad skit that De Niro did with Fallon. It was called “Space Train”. Both men were in a train car that was heading out to space on a rail. Yes, it was that bad.
That was the end of De Niro’s interview. Unlike the Conan show where the first guest would leave before the second one came on, De Niro stuck around for the rest of the show. Poor guy.
Justin Timberlake
Manufactured pop star Justin Timberlake was the second guest of the evening. Fallon seemed to have loosened up after the De Niro interview. Fallon wasn’t able to maintain a line of questioning with Timberlake. The interview jumped all over the place and mainly concentrated on reminiscing with Timberlake about the time he appeared on Saturday Night Live. They discussed a sketch they did together where they pretended to be the Bee Gees. They both even did a little horrible falsetto singing. Terrible.
The highlight of the interview was at the very end when Timberlake did an impression of former Doobie Brothers lead singer Michael McDonald while singing a product placement for Budweiser beer. Timberlake mimicked McDonald’s voice spot-on. That was good.
Musical guest Van Morrison
Legendary performer Van Morrison was the musical guest for the evening. I think he was plugging a greatest hits album. After the performance, Fallon mentioned a bunch of retail stores where people could buy the album, probably another paid product placement for the stores. Van Morrison performed some song that I had never heard before. It didn’t sound very good. I think the sound engineer didn’t have the instrument levels set properly. The sound was bad even for the house band.
The best part of the show
The best part of the show was the end. Sweet mercy at last! If I wasn’t planning to do a little review of the show, I would never have watched it for the duration. I would have switched channels within seconds of Fallon’s opening monologue. That’s how bad both he and the show were.
Fallon’s first outing as host of his own talk show was not good. If he and the producers of “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” were trying to put on a bad show, they succeeded. It almost seemed as if the show was intentionally trying to be bad.
If this show is going to succeed, they are going to need to find better writers, a better band, and, well, let’s give Jimmy Fallon the benefit of the doubt for the time being. Even Conan O’Brien took almost a year to hit his stride.
On the bright side, when you suck beyond compare you can only get better. It isn’t possible for Fallon or his show to get any worse.
I miss Conan already.