Late Night with Jimmy Fallon – Week Two/Weak, Too

(l) man with bad idea, (r) bad idea

Years ago, when Lorne Michaels was told he could produce “Late Night” after Letterman bailed for CBS, Michaels wasted no time in choosing Conan O’Brien. Normally, when one uses the phrase, “wasted no time,” it means that somebody quickly thought up a cunning and clever solution to a problem. In the case of Lorne Michaels, to say he “wasted no time” means he opened the door to his office and gave the hosting duties to the first warm body he could find. It was nothing less than a miracle that Conan turned out to be good at the job. It would appear Michaels hoped lightning would strike twice when he grabbed Jimmy Fallon, one of the Not Even Ready For Late Night Television Players and gave him a crack at hosting.

Week Two’s collection of video vignettes included a look at Fallon’s attempt at standup comedy (a move, he claims, that was inspired by Jay Leno). This clip, coupled with the subsequent entry entitled “The Art of the Monologue Joke,” cemented in my mind Fallon’s inability to think on his feet, which, hopefully, we can all agree is essential to the job of a live (or live-to-tape) talk show host. The premise behind “The Art of the Monologue Joke” was that, after wasting the day trying to come up with a single joke, Fallon eventually relented and ordered a member of his writing staff to do it. Not an entirely unfunny premise, but, and I’m not making this up, the week’s third video installment was a feature on the writing staff. In other words, Fallon joked about his inability to be funny, then permanently etched the idea into our brains by spotlighting the show’s writers. To paraphrase Bill Carter, there are two things nobody wants to see made: ground beef and comedy.

Will Forte stopped by the video blog, and I heaved a sigh of relief that his wasn’t the first face Michaels saw when tasked with finding a new host. Is it too much to ask that Michaels leave the hallways of “Saturday Night Live” before selecting the next host? On second thought, Kathie Lee works at 30 Rock these days, doesn’t she?

In what would appear to be a regular feature on the video blog series, the last blog of the week was “Ask Jimmy,” wherein Jimmy is asked a question which he then tries to answer without cracking up… too much. I note that Mr. Fallon has, thus far, been unable to do an undedited four minutes of, for want of a better phrase, schtick.

Each of his posts have been edited (in some cases heavily). The man is going to have to stand in front of an audience, as himself instead of some character, and be interesting/entertaining. And he will have to do this for a lot longer than four minutes a night. It should be making the NBC executives a little nervous that he can’t do four solid minutes without a jump-cut.