So he starts by saying this is the first Tonight Show broadcast from New York in over forty years. That's when Carson took his show West…but what about the two times Leno did a week of shows from Manhattan?
A little too much gushing about his band and announcer. I thought for a moment I was watching a rerun of Sammy and Company, the legendary talk show on which Sammy Davis and his guests never got far off the subject of the awesome greatness of each other. Also a little too much about what a great honor it is to be the host of The Tonight Show. Hope he doesn't keep that up because I think it was one of the things that drove a lot of folks away from Conan, who mentioned it way too often his first week or two or nine.
Okay monologue. The incorporation of a film segment felt a little Leno, and Fallon is just not a strong seller of stand-up material. In all the interviews, Jay said that when Jimmy asked him for advice, he suggested a longer monologue. That might not be wise counsel given how Fallon has that same "do it and get it over with" attitude that Conan brought to his.
Funny bit with a nice list of celebs coming on to pay off a bet that Fallon would never get the job. One was Joan Rivers, the first time she's set foot on something called The Tonight Show since Carson ousted her as guest host. Leno refused to have her on, in part because some would have interpreted it as a slam at Johnny (and possibly because she would have rushed to the press and other shows to say that's exactly what it was). I wonder if Fallon's going to have her on as an actual guest.
The live audience is a little too madly in love with everything anyone says or does.
They cut from a cute dance number with Will Smith to Fallon on the roof at Rockefeller Plaza introducing U2. I may be wrong but that strikes me as the first time on any Tonight Show, they've ever surrendered the premise that the show is shot in real time. Of course, there have often been edits and pre-recorded bits but there was always an effort to make it seem like an hour show was done in an hour. If Johnny was in costume for a sketch and then they went to two minutes of commercials, he either changed back into host garb in two minutes or he came out partially-changed for the next act so as to keep that "real time" feel. Here though, we cut from Jimmy in the studio to Jimmy somewhere else. I'm not sure this is a good idea.
Interesting that they also put a musical number in the middle of the show. It's kind of become the norm for 11:35 talk shows to do that at the very end or not at all. I wonder what the thinking was behind that.
Fallon is very likeable — more so than Dave and a lot more so than the other Jimmy — but the first guest spot, which is with Will Smith, is a little too Sammy and Company for me. Then U2 comes out to do panel and remind us why talk shows rarely have musicians do that. They close the segment with an obviously-planned bit in which Fallon "surprises" U2 by asking them to do an acoustic number with just guitars and microphones, then Bono "surprises" Jimmy by presenting him a gift guitar. Bono looks a bit uncomfy with pretending this is all spontaneous but it's a fine number.
It's a good start but there's always been something a bit lightweight to me about Mr. Fallon. He feels like a guest host on his own show and I'm already wondering how long I'm going to keep the Season Pass I entered for his show on my TiVo. I might stick around a while if he can get away from the topic of how incredible it is that he's the host of The Tonight Show. Conan barely did before the topic shifted to him being removed as the host of The Tonight Show.
It's interesting that after Jimmy talked about how much he loved his announcer, Steve Higgins, they didn't let the guy sit on the couch or do anything. And you know, The Roots may well be "legendary" as they keep telling us…but playing the theme and lead-ins and lead-outs on a talk show, they don't demonstrate to me any skills that Max Weinberg's band didn't have, that Paul Shaffer's band doesn't have, etc.
I have no idea how Fallon will do. He has a couple of advantages over Conan. I think audiences like him more and it won't be as easy to replace him if he doesn't bring in the numbers they want. I can't help but feel that if he has problems, it'll be because audience interest in that kind of show is evaporating and there's just too much competition from new networks, Netflix, XBox, time-delayed shows from other dayparts, YouTube and a hundred other options that audiences have now but didn't when Johnny was on.
I guess I hope Jimmy does well because I really like him. But I'm not sure I like his show well enough to watch every night.