I realized this morning the main thing I didn't like about Jimmy Fallon's first Tonight Show. It's the same thing I don't like about any late night shows done in the last decade or three.
People keep talking about the tradition of Steve Allen, Jack Paar and Johnny Carson…and they sometimes toss in the old, NBC version of Dave Letterman. But they forget one important component of the shows that all three or four of those men did. They all had many moments when the host had to ad-lib and things happened that the producers did not expect.
That tradition is absolutely gone and it is nowhere less evident than it is in Fallon's program. Everything is on cue cards and TelePrompter and most of it was probably rehearsed. Will Smith, in the big interview, probably didn't say one thing that Jimmy didn't know was coming. Jimmy probably didn't ask Will one question that hadn't been planned and maybe even rehearsed. The same is true of Dave these days and it's been true of the occasional Kimmel shows I've sat through. Craig Ferguson is the loosest in this area but he never lets things get out of his control for a second. (Leno occasionally seemed to stray from the pre-planned interviews when he had someone on who was talking about cars or the old days at the Comedy Store…but even he rehearsed the bits where they'd bring out live animals.)
Now, in fairness to the hosts, an awful lot of Big Stars these days won't go on a late night show unless they or their handlers have approved the questions and perhaps rehearsed replies. But the shows would rather have those guests on than not and there's no reason to rehearse and plan sketches and demonstrations so thoroughly except that they want everything to be perfect. What they forget is that a big appeal of late night TV once was that it wasn't perfect. Prime Time was perfect. Late Night was where you never knew exactly what would happen and neither did the host.
Carson was very good at making planned material look spontaneous but he did have unplanned moments, some of them quite memorable. Even his sketches were noticeably under-rehearsed. Today's hosts are not called upon for much spontaneity…and I saw absolutely none on Fallon's first Tonight Show. They didn't even risk doing one of his games where they might not be able to predict which player would have more eggs broken on his head.
I keep thinking that the future of Late Night will be a show where the host himself (or herself) genuinely does not know where a lot of conversations or bits are heading. I wonder how long it'll be before someone tries that. No one will deserve the title of "Johnny's heir" until they do.