The Jimmy Fallon Experiment: Day Two (LOST Bum Night)

Now that Coco is gone, I have been trying Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. This is my second episode. You can read the run-down of the first episode I watched here.

Don't get excited, Hall & Oates had to cancel.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010:

• This was Jimmy's one year anniversary episode. With him as always was The Roots. (Is it me or are The Roots mostly just drummers)? He started by saying, "Welcome to Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, NBC's longest running comedy show. I remember when we started, Jay Leno was still hosting the Tonight Show." Stupid NBC. Jimmy sang a song that he wrote called "Freshman 15." It was all with Blacklights and stuff. It was OK.
• After the first break, Jimmy showed the second installment of LATE (his parody of LOST). I never saw the first one. The premise is that his elevator just crashed on a deserted floor of the building. I liked the guy who was trying to find his son and then found him. There WAS a pretty good MC Escher reference. And why did it take him so long to take a mint? It was funny, but kind of long.
• The first guest was that Robert Pattinson from those Twilight movies. He did some movie with Claire from LOST. (It was like LOST night). The thing about Pattinson being a guest is that Jimmy does these video parodies of him called "Robert is Bothered." They showed one with Pattinson and Jimmy together where Jimmy basically tried to get him to say he was bothered. And then he did. Then he shot lazers out of his eyes. Jimmy asked Pattinson if he watches LOST (I told you it was LOST night) and he said that he watched the first half of the first episode, but it was too confusing for him. I don't know much about this guy. He seems like an OK guy, but he sort of looks like a bum. The clip they showed from his new movie looked kind of terrible.
• The second guest was Judah Friedlander the guy who wears hats on 30 Rock. He also looks like a bum. Besides being LOST night, it was also kind of bum night. He basically brought out a bunch of stuff like a dancing doll from China that didn't work and a coconut sculpture that some guy he went to high school with made.
• The musical guest was supposed to be Hall & Oates, but they had to cancel. In their place was chef Mario Batali. He was a guest during the show's first week. He is also a record guest - he has been on the show more than anyone else. He also likes PBR. He's like some kind of hipster chef. He made some crack about Peta and was apparently going to kill some lobsters on the show, so I stopped watching.

Overall, it was an OK show. If this was a Conan anniversary show, I imagine there would have been more excitement and crazy guests/skits. This seemed just like a regular show. Maybe it was the lack of Hall & Oates.

The Jimmy Fallon Experiment: Day One (Fever Pitch Night)

So I Tivo'd Late Night with Jimmy Fallon this week to see if it will be my new show. I will review each of the week's episodes here on the blog!

Monday Night/Tuesday morning Jan. 11/12, 2010:

• Jimmy had the audience play a spit take game where they spit on each other. It was pretty funny! I liked when he asked one team to switch places because he didn't "want to get anything on The Roots."
• The first guest was Maggie Glyyenhaal (I don't know how to spell her name, but her husband is Peter Saarsgard). Everyone says the movie Crazy Heart is really good, but it's about a country singer. Apparently Jimmy actually likes country music because his wife likes it. Maggie said she got into it when she was nineteen, too. She is one of those hipster people who throw around names like Bobbie Gentry, Iris DeMente, and Gillian Welch, (Jimmy asked if she was "in the X-Files" which was not funny) because they didn't grow up around country music, but Jimmy's wife is into non-hipsters like Merle Haggard.
• The next guest was baseball player David "Big Papi" Ortiz. I think he plays for the Red Sox. Jimmy mentioned being in the movie Fever Pitch within two seconds of the guy coming out, but it was interesting when he described how the movie was originally supposed to end with him and Drew in "old people make-up" in, like 2053 or something, when the Red Sox finally won (but then, you know, they won). He sells hot sauce. It's also hip to be into hot sauce. I'm not that into hot sauce. I would totally pretend to be into hot sauce, but I'm afraid I would end up having to put it to the test one day, just like if I pretended to be into Bobbie Gentry, someone would eventually make me listen to country on, like, a cross country road trip or something. Anyway, Big Papi threw some eggs at Jimmy. It was pretty good.
• The last guest was a Boston comedian, Lenny Clark. He is on Rescue Me and... wait for it... he played Jimmy's uncle in Fever Pitch! Then he talked about how fat he was when he was in Fever Pitch! Stop talking about Fever Pitch, everyone! This was kind of like a Boston theme night.

Overall, it was a fun show and a good start to my Late Night experiment. Now I can look forward to watching the next episode which is all about Ringo!

Late Night

Is anyone else tired of Jay Leno? Just go home to your cars and retire!

I was a longtime fan of Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and thought he was really getting his due when NBC announced he would be taking over the Tonight Show. Then NBC pulled that stupid move of giving Leno a show that came on right before the Tonight Show. (To be fair, I never watched that show, but I have heard it was pretty terrible and that it was a lot like Leno's Tonight Show which I did not like). Now, according to articles like this, they are going to move Conan (and Jimmy Fallon) to even LATER in the evening to give Jay his old spot back. That sounds like a terrible idea.

Anyway, as much as I like Conan, his Tonight Show is not his Late Night. I've decided to give Jimmy Fallon a try because, from the commercials, it looks like he is doing some pretty funny out-there things and has some interesting quirky guests.

Well, the perfect time to switch to Jimmy is here - Ringo Tuesday! On Tuesday, Ringo Starr's new album Y Not hits stores (are there still any record stores?) and he will be the only guest on Late Night.

Maybe if Conan's Tonight Show moves to after midnight (or to FOX), he will get to show a little more of that old Late Night pizazz, but starting Tuesday I'm setting my DVR to Jimmy Fallon.