NEWS > ENTERTAINMENT > JIMMY FALLON TO ATTEMPT COMEDY ON LATE NIGHT SHOW

JIMMY FALLON TO ATTEMPT COMEDY ON LATE NIGHT SHOW

June 5 2009

Los Angeles, CA – Lat night television has been littered with peaks and valleys. From Jack Paar to Alan Thicke, from Johnny Carson to Chevy Chase success has always met failure with the latter becoming to most common outcome. Part of that is the unfortunate reality of limited space, some of that is simply bad matches or misguided
concepts, but regardless of the reasons it appears as though many will continue to try their hand at the game, and most will lose.

Stepping into that harsh environment would seem an unenviable job proposition for many but that is exactly what former Saturday Night Live star Jimmy Fallon did last March, taking over for Conan O’Brien. Now with O’Brien taking over Fallon’s lead in, ‘The Tonight Show’, the comedian is looking to subtly change his format and introduce some comedy and appeal to the late night format, something which has been lacking since taking over.

“We are super happy to have Conan leading in for us and it’s already making us think about things differently. We’ve tried jokes and skits in the past but for the most part they haven’t really been all that funny and we wanted to try something different. We looked back on the history of talk shows and late night in
particular and realized how effectively they used comedy and we have decided to try that,” said Fallon. “It’s going to be a change in the way we do things, I mean we are fooling ourselves in respect to that, but we feel we are more than up to the challenge. From this point on this show will be funny. Our jokes will be funny, our skits will be funny, and my interactions with the guests will be funny. We see Conan’s challenge and we are upping the ante.”

Critics have derided the comedian’s late night show for its nearly complete lack of humour and surprising lack of charisma from the host who had had such success on Saturday Night Live.

“Late night has not been kind for SNL veterans. Chevy Chase and Dennis Miller were both chewed up in that particular meat grinder and so the cards were definitely stacked against Fallon from the word go. Add to that their indifference to comedy and you have a kind of perfect
storm that opens them up to criticism and viewer indifference,” said Scrape TV Entertainment analyst Tracey Temple. “To be fair, Fallon was following in the footsteps if one of the most successful talk show hosts in history, a person who was his lead in for those first few months. Leno stumbled upon comedy every now and then but all in all he got by on his placid nature and viewers general indifference to changing the channel. 12:30 is a lot different from 11:30 though and even though booze and weed makes things that ordinarily wouldn’t be considered funny absolutely hysterical you still need to come close.”

Fallon competes in the late night time slot with British comedian Craig Ferguson on CBS. Ferguson has also flirted with comedy on his show in the past but for the most part has stayed away from attempting anything too far out.

“Talk shows are part personality, part smarts, part humour and having success in that
medium without any of those things is a very difficult thing to accomplish. You can succeed with at least one of those characteristics though it is still difficult, but Fallon is unfortunately lacking in all three. Comedy at least is something they can fake,” continued Temple. “Of course now they are going to have to go through the process of hiring new writers and new performers for skits but that is what it takes to succeed in the late night game in this day and age. The trick is not going too far out from the comfort zone. If they try to go too funny Fallon will just seem lost and that will defeat the purpose.”

Producers did not set a timetable for when comedy will be introduced into the show.

Samantha Dryden, Entertainment Correspondent

NEWS > ENTERTAINMENT > JIMMY FALLON TO ATTEMPT COMEDY ON LATE NIGHT SHOW