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The Tonight Show

I don't see much difference between Fallon owning the show and Lorne Michaels owning it. Michaels now owns (or shares ownership of Tonight and Late Night). Michaels' loyalty may have been to NBC, but he doesn't have much to be loyal to Comcast for. They need him more than he needs them. And now he controls 11.5 hours of airtime each week (more if you count the specials and the SNL re-air on Saturdays at 10 p.m.). So it isn't like NBC has the cards when it comes to late night.
 
exmediahack said:
Once Letterman landed the CBS job in 1993, he tried hard for a month and then flipped it into cruise control, the only exceptions being his heart surgery and post 9/11.

Nonsense. Letterman's disengagement came much later. He ran off Robert Morton three years into the CBS run, which would suggest he was still pretty hands-on with things then.

The surrender came years later, when he realized he wasn't going to beat "Tonight." The combination of the ratings issues, fatherhood and age led to the disconnect that it apparent now.
 
"There's been quiet talk behind the scenes for months that Dave will have Jay Leno on as a guest," one insider said. "(Letterman's) producers waited until Fallon debuted (on 'Tonight'), give him space out of respect, but are now ready to pull out all the stops."

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/confidential/letterman-leno-steal-fallon-thunder-article-1.1622031
 
jr/shotglash said:
Mark2010 said:
They dumped Jay Leno for this guy?!?!?! He's not funny in the least and is just filling dead air.

If I want to watch one of those guys (and I don't do it often), I'd watch Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert.

I mean ... c'mon.

http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight-show/segments/1401

Yeah, that's not the least bit funny or creative. How about some bad headlines, Jay?
 
Carson lovers, be sure to watch this. Get past the Julie Andrews bit and you'll find some pure off-camera Carson.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jOtOsi9NcVY
 
exmediahack said:
Johnny Carson was a prick to many people as well as a perfectionist with his show. He cut off Joan Rivers not because she tried to start her own show on FOX in 1986 but because Rivers never gave Carson a heads up about it beforehand. He found out about it watching TV.

Carson also held more power in television than any on-air person will ever again. In 1979, he told NBC he was quitting and the network freaked out. In the end, Carson wielded the power, regaining ownership of the show, keeping all of his vacation (8 or 10 weeks, I believe), only four new shows a week plus trimming it from 90 minutes to 60. Carson's deal was like the Treaty of Versailles.

Even as NBC was clearing $50 million a year in profit off Carson's show, the network wanted to make sure whoever succeeded Carson would be a "yes, man" and agreeable to their ideas.

Enter Letterman. Clearly the more talented and edgy host compared with Jay Leno in the 1980's. Like Carson, Letterman was an angry perfectionist about his show. He was miserable to be around after each episode of Late Night as he would watch the tape and dig and pry for any mistakes that anybody did.

In television, that's how the elite performers operate. They're ashholes and pricks. Doesn't make it right but they hold themselves to an incredibly high standard.

NBC pashed on Letterman because he was a prick and Leno would be more than happy to fly to Toledo, Topeka and Tulsa to shake hands with the news anchors and do promos. (I met him twice at different NBC stations in my career -- good guy and truly loves what he does).

Once Letterman landed the CBS job in 1993, he tried hard for a month and then flipped it into cruise control, the only exceptions being his heart surgery and post 9/11.

NBC is determined NEVER to let another prick sit in the Tonight Show seat, never to have another host with the juice to own his own show (like Carson or Letterman at CBS), one who "knows his place". Letterman made a living out of ripping NBC and GE from about 1985 on and that actually sealed his fate to never host the Tonight Show.

Conan O'Brien was out of the Letterman mold, never afraid to rip the network and also not shy about ignoring input from network executives. Once the ratings crapped out, Conan was done.

Fallon will do whatever it takes to hold onto the job, similar to Leno. He won't be edgy but he'll be agreeable to new ideas -- or at least he will flatter the executives.

NBC also benefits from having a "D-League" of comedic league on SNL. The second they don't like Jimmy Fallon, they can just look to whomever is doing Weekend Update as a possible replacement.
This is the best breakdown of this topic that I've read. Carson and Letterman are, what I call "tortured geniuses". Flip on the light and the camera, they can't do no wrong, but their perfectionism and attitude/behavior was one that most were willing to tolerate, and in the case of NBC, they wanted nothing to do with.

Strong personalities have strong, to the point of irrational levels of, ego.

The more I think and read about Leno, the more I understand him and his role with The Tonight Show.

I thought it was great that Joan Rivers made an appearance in Fallon's debut. That exile was long enough for her.

On Fallon, I didn't watch much of his work on SNL or on Late Night. All I knew is that the Roots was his house band, and I would catch snippets of his best skits on YouTube. I don't I've ever seen a debut week like Fallon pulled off. I enjoyed it.
 
DanOregon said:
Stewart's interviews with authors of books I'd never imagine I'd be interested in reading are better than his interviews with actors pushing their latest project.

I do hope Fallon encourages guests to stick around on the couch after their segment is done. It can lead to some amusing moments.
If Fallon can encourage his guests to stick around, I hope it might resemble these gems:

http://youtu.be/cLiEVvGMjhk?t=48s
http://youtu.be/q5_V9RT8aR8
 
Monday Morning Sportswriter said:
Another favorite Carson, on one of the rare nights Doc was sitting in the second chair.



An All-Timer. Doc keeps hitting them out of the park.
 
Just catching up on my magazine reading, and read this take that hits the mark perfectly for me. (Some of you might need to set your opinion of Jones aside for a moment, if possible)

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/culture/jimmy-fallon

The key graf:
I feel as though I can laugh without guilt at Fallon and his bag of tricks, like his skits with Timberlake, because they never require his being mean or cruel or cynical for them to work. Fallon performs that increasingly rare form of comedy—one that is born from love and leaves nobody the loser.
 
D-3 Fan said:
DanOregon said:
Stewart's interviews with authors of books I'd never imagine I'd be interested in reading are better than his interviews with actors pushing their latest project.

I do hope Fallon encourages guests to stick around on the couch after their segment is done. It can lead to some amusing moments.
If Fallon can encourage his guests to stick around, I hope it might resemble these gems:

http://youtu.be/cLiEVvGMjhk?t=48s
http://youtu.be/q5_V9RT8aR8

Screw that. I hope it's like this:

 

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