So, when I was much younger, Johnny Carson was the host of The Tonight Show and I thought "This guy's not even funny. Why is he considered a comedian? I guess old people think he's funny."
And then Jay Leno became host, and I thought "This guy's not even funny. Why is he considered a comedian? I guess old people think he's funny."
And now they've named Jimmy Fallon the new host, and my first thought on hearing the news was "Finally! A Tonight Show host that's young and hip and funn.... oh. my. God." It was like seeing the Cadillac commercial with the Led Zeppelin soundtrack and realizing that the choice of tunes does not necessarily signify that Cadillac's target demographic is getting younger.
Please, somebody in the under-25 age bracket, tell me that you also find Jimmy Fallon at least moderately droll.
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Johnny Carson was the soporific that used to send me to sleep in minutes, when I was younger.
Leno... I know he's a car guy, so always willing to give him a listen.
The new twit.... not even going to bother.
OK I have to admit I never enjoyed anything but the opening monologue from any of them. But, I don't think Fallon is funny at all.
LOL
Sorry. I thought Leno was funny.
Carson was predictably dull and so was reassuring. The funniest part of his show was when he would tell a joke and no one would get it. Then he would try to explain the joke.
WHO ?
Leno's okay, don't think Fallon is funny at all...
The commentariat thus far is not reassuring. :p
Fallon: fey. And not in the good way
I don't find Fallon funny at all. You could always try Conan. Now please excuse me while I wash my mouth out with soap.
Jimmy Fallon is preferable only to Will Ferrell.
And having my intestines eaten by rabid dingos is preferable to watching anything with Will Ferrell in it, so I'm damning with faint praise here.
HA! Welcome to my world.
Some of Carsons stuff was actually pretty good. Never thought much of Leno but at least he makes a few jokes about the current admin (which may be why he's on the way out).
Jimmy Who?
Tam, I'm afraid that, as a 25 year old, I can't reassure you at all.
After a little googling I realized I Had seen Fallon before. Kind of forgettable.
Reading this is a weird experience for me.
I am an old man. (I will be 48 in a few weeks.)
(pause for all the "you think 48 is old?" folks to laugh at me)
When I was young and able to watch Carson (we're talking little kid through teenage years), I thought he was hilarious. Watching old clips of him, I still think so. I also think Carson was admirable for reasons other than comedy, but that's another discussion for another time.
I've watched a little of Leno, off and on, over many years. I think he can be funny, but doesn't have any incentive to be so at the moment.
I've never seen a second of Fallon, and have no desire to.
I got old before my time. I started finding the Carson flavor of the show entertaining in my 20's.
Leno never could hold my interest despite our shared love of cars.
Fallon and the rest of his generation need to get off my lawn.
Interesting... I never cared much for Led Zeppelin until Cadillac used them in that ad. Then I thought, "Well, if they're cool enough for Cadillac, then maybe I should give them another look." Must be why I didn't get them earlier, I just was too young to appreciate them.
Wait. There's TV on after 10PM?
That's usually my prime reading time.
No, Fallon is not funny. In fact, he's anti-funny. You know those Capital One ads he does with the little girl. She's funny. None of these guys on late-night shows are funny, which is why I'm watching Adult Swim most nights after crawling into bed.
I saw Fallon do a pretty good Jerry Seinfeld impression once. It made me 'heh'. I'm 36.
Fuzzy Curmudgeon,
"Wait. There's TV on after 10PM?"
There is.
Like all TV, I don't watch it*, but one remains aware of its existence as part of the pop cultural background noise.
(Well, that's not entirely true: I've watched some TV shows... I used to watch Fox's Sunday night lineup, long ago, but since then I've only watched House, Archer, and Elementary, and then only via DVD or Roku... :o )
Joe,
Oddly, I don't think Fallon trying to do comedy is very funny, as he tries too hard and winds up more goofy than funny, but I find him witty and engaging as an interviewer when interacting with guests. Almost the opposite of Leno in that respect; Leno could deliver a canned joke well.
I'll be turning 62 in a few weeks, and I agree with Dwight Brown: I did and still think Carson was funny. Not so much for the monologue as for the skits and his interaction with his guests. Karnak the Magnificent was a hoot, between the schtick of his huge turban and the awful puns. (Yes, I love puns. YMMV)
I usually go to bed by 10pm now, but have seem brief clips of Leno and Fallon. Leno is spotty, Fallon not even that good, for my tastes. And personal taste is what all this boils down to, eh?
I never actually saw Johnny Carson except in some clips on the Youtubes.
Not a big Jay Leno fan as far as his show goes, but I would enjoy sitting down and talking cars with him. Especially if it was in his garage.
Jimmy Fallon....ugh. Agree with Jay G regarding Will Ferrell, too.
Conan O'Brien I actually find to be really funny.
I am 32.
Your average full-time comedian might be able to crank out a refined, completely new (1 hour) set once a year.
Even with writers, a different 5-minute set 5-days a week is beyond their imaginations.
53 here...and I remember liking Carson when I bothered to watch him. Never did like Leno or anyone else. Realized that, while I might find a joke funny during the intro, it was the whole format that I didn't like. It's all promotion for this book or that movie...and I just don't care.
TV...I enjoy me some shows, but they HAVE to be recorded. Can't stand dah commercials...
Oh...and I have to tell somebody. I scored 100 rounds of Am Eagle 5.56 yesterday for 60 cents a round! Woohoo...
Of course the target demographic has not changed. You should only be worried when you become the target demo.
BTW, the switch was not get a younger, hipper demo, but to continue to service the same demo, but with someone who hadn't been shown up and consequently turned to the dark side (ever so slightly) by Dennis Miller. After all, NBC can't keep the old people, who vote much more reliably than the 25 and under crowd, in the dark if Leno keeps joking about Benghazi and golf outings.
Congrats on becoming an old fogey, Tam.
Age 48, one toddler in the house, second kid on the way... I've been lucky enough to not need late night TV in the same room with the rocking chair.
I liked Carson and Letterman back in the undergrad days - saw it 'live' when Cher told Dave exactly what he is! - but mainly for the music & standup guests; LCB said it already about the shows.
Jimmy Fallon was funny for about fifteen seconds in his "Nick Burns" days, and then mainly because I'd just ended seven years in IT. I'm sure that no one under the age of 25 remembers or cares.
If I have to, I'll watch Conan and hope that "Triumph the Insult Comic Dog" makes a comeback- I've made certain that my sister's under-25 kids know about that particular laugh riot!
My sons tell me that Fallon is teh suck (they're 16 and 18). I haven't owned a teewee of my own since, oh, nineteen hundred and...I dunno, seventy or eighty something.
The Ex had one, and I caught a couple estipodes (STET) of Babylon 5. Visited her family in The Frozen North and decided to re-tile a bathroom and re-wire the garage rather then join them watching "sports" and by "sports" I mean golf. (Quiet, dammit, he's about to putt!) Never got a chance to watch FireFly. Still don't have a teewee, and have lobotomized all computers to avoid all Adobe products (must connect to the mothership! Flash Player call home!)
I do remember that, when I was young and dinosaurs roamed the earth, Cadillac used Glen Miller to capture the target audience. They should have used Benny Goodman - Sing Sing Sing is still a killer.
Time to check out the signs! Today is Thursday. The next meal is Lunch.
I have seen Fallon, and not sure why people think he's funny, maybe it's just me.
There has always been one reason why the late night talk shows are on late at night and not during daytime.
You may also notice that they don't rerun the late night talk shows during daylight hours.
Something that you will watch when falling asleep is NOT something you will watch when awake.
Being soporific is a niche entertainment talent that few possess, but those that do have it have gigs on late night talk shows.
I realize I'm not in your target demographic, Tam, but the only late-night comedian I find remotely funny is Craig Ferguson.
I miss Jack Parr.
I once spent several hours with Leno in his garage, talking business. SUPER nice guy, exact opposite of what I expected. No I'm-a-bigshot attitude at all. Spoke very, very positively about his wife and obviously respects and loves her. Come lunchtime, Jay asked all of us what we wanted on our burgers, then went out back and grilled them himself and got it all correct. Also, his bike and car collection is friggin' amazing.
I dropped the dish last year.
I only watch Netflix and Youtube now.
I'm much happier watching a 5 minute Freddie Wong clip in between Minecraft with my daughter, or Ticket to Ride with the whole family, than messing with regular TV. I haven't watched all the Warehouse 13s, or Dirty Jobs, or Dr. Whos yet, and even if I do there is something with tanks and Nazis I haven't seen yet I'm sure.
I'm 20 now, and I'm afraid I have no idea who Jimmy Fallon is. Granted, there are a great many pop names I am unaware of, so I should not be taken as a representative sample.
I was young well before you were, and I thought Carson was hilarious.
More importantly for a Tonight Show host, he was a classy and gracious gentleman.
Now get off my lawn!
Right on the 25 age bracket, but I find Fallon hilariously, going back to his SNL days.
And to top that off, I was always a fan of his because of the work he put into his character on Band of Brothers and the respect he showed the 101st and 4th Armored in various interviews he did concerning that role.
Why stay up `til odd hours and pay someone to make bad jokes about celebs that I don't care about... I can log onto this blog and get snark about things I do care about for free.
Comedy is nearly impossible to do every day for ages. The best you can hope for even with a crew of great writers is to be sarcastic and sardonic enough that you get the occasional laugh.
Comedy is like a short con- you are attracted to the three card monte guy because he's a fast talker with a sense of humor, and even after you walk away $20 lighter, you feel entertained. the long con is about making you feel smarter than everyone else- the deep grafter spends his time denigrating people you dislike, and he's obviously very smart, so it makes you feel smart to do what he says. That is how the better sitcoms thrive, by making you feel smarter than those "others". The sarcastic/sardonic long con has been going on forever, and is now the full cornerstone of the media- making the easily conned among us feel sooper smart because they agree with the bushitler hating talking head on TV.
Good, genuinely funny standup comedians work months to pull together 15 minutes of really good material. Lenos early standup was actually pretty good. Fallon has his moments but he will be reading other people's unfunny jokes himself in a month.
Fallon simply has a delivery style that appeals to one group of people, like leno's delivery style appealed to others, like etc&etc.
Most of this is why I watch "Mystery" and cooking shows. I haven't watched a network anything for I dunno how long.
Craig Ferguson is pretty damn funny, but the rest pretty well suck all the time except for Leno. As you noted Tam, Leno can deliver a canned joke pretty well. Male, age 29.
Fallon may have occasional delivery issues, but there's some chops underneath. Google up "fallon timberlake history of rap" or "fallow tebowie" on YouTube.
That should be "fallon tebowie", of course.
I can't picture Fallon at all. If he can do an engaging interview that's good news, the Tonight Show had some good interviewers in the past, notably Jack Parr (whom I've only seen in historical clips, btw, thankyouverymuch). As for humor, neither Leno nor Carson were laugh-out-loud funny to me. Steve Allen was funny to me if his "best of' is any indication.
Well, at age 54, if I'm up that late, it's usually because I'm running a Series or Movie through the Roku and Netflix. The rest of it? Well, I like Grimm, and Bones has it's moments, but since we came out of the Dark Ages with the InterWeb, I really don't care who the Current Corporate Cultural Icon of the Week is.
What worries me is that I know who Jack Parr was.
But I do wish I was old enough to catch "Your Show of Shows" when it came out. Sid Caeser was a GOD!
And Mary Anne over Ginger. Trust me. ;)
Woodman,
I have been trying for two years to talk the wife in to ditching dah Dish...she won't hear of it. Has to see her American Dancing Idol Stars the night of the show so she can gab about it at work the next day with the rest of the womens...
Or...is it Dancing Idol American Stars...or...Idol Dancing American Stars....or...
Never could get it straight...
:-)
OK, I miss your target demographic by a bit (say 30 years or there about) I remember Johnny and he had his moments. I remember Jay, I like Jay he's a car guy's Car Guy. I thought he was funny but like all of them, not all the time. I liked them both much more than Conan or Letterman. Although I understand Conan is a pretty decent sort. Jimmy is to me a non-entity, mostly because I disconnected the TV back in 1987 and only reconnected it for a couple of years around 2001.
I tune in to fox business in the mornings to get an idea where the markets are going for the day, they allow Imus the morning time slot. At about half past 6 they have a "bernie briefing" that usually consists of clips from the previous nights late night shows. It seems unanimous that Jimmy Fallon is the least funny person on t.v. and NBC will remain in last place in the ratings game.
Fallon = Fail on Steroids.
"It seems unanimous that Jimmy Fallon is the least funny person on t.v."
He's certainly not polling well with the Old White Dude audience here at VFTP, which was The Tonight Show's core demographic.
Loved Carson, started watching him around 14. Could only watch in the summers because of school. I was privileged to be able to watch most of the last 6 months or so of his shows, due to being fortuitously unemployed. (No one can prove I did it on purpose, you didn't see anything, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.)
Stopped watching when Leno showed up. Fallon just reminds me of a younger Letterman--not funny, just mean.
I think there's been a shift in what these shows are supposed to be.
In Carson's day, it was kind of a vicarious social life - as if one had been invited to a cocktail party where the other guests were famous and/or interesting people. Carson was a personable, mildly humorous person who fit the role of hosting such a party. It worked pretty well on that level. He wasn't supposed to be fall-on-the-floor-and-wet-your-pants kind of funny, just a generally amusing person whose parties you'd like to go to.
As someone mentioned above, these shows now are much more heavily into promoting someone's latest book or movie - or even more freqently, another TV show on the same network. And today's celebrities just aren't as interesting as those of my childhood - not to me, at least. I remember Carson with Jimmy Stewart on the show for instance. Here's a guy who was a movie star, sure, and was in an awful lot of very good movies - and oh, by the way, he was also a bomber pilot in WWII. Sorry, but the guy (or gal) whose claim to fame is a role on the latest sitcom NBC is trying to promote just isn't as interesting.
So, in a dearth of really interesting people, they try to be more entertaining by having more joke writer jokes and sketch comedy and running features and guy-in-the-street stuff. And it usually falls flat.
I'm about your same age, Tam, but I'm obviously a premature curmudgeon. But then again, the world today offers so many good reasons to be a curmudgeon, it's almost impossible to resist.
Alath
Carmel IN
I heard John Stewart is gonna replace David Letterman so the un-funny late-night comedian gig can remain constant. But Jimmy Fallon reminds me of Pee Wee Herman.
Sorry. 'M 25 and have yet to crack a smile at any of his jokes.
To this near 40yr old male, the best thing on late at night was MST 3k.
Still is.
Fallon does a good Neil Young impression, and is very occasionally amusing otherwise.
Put my marker down on Craig Ferguson, though. And MST3K (especially back in the Comedy Central days).
I am over 25 but under 30. Fallon is funny in the way that Applebees is decent food and domestic beer is good. Not amazing though it does really hits the spot occasionally (ex. I'm getting drunk drunk drunk on Christmas) and is generally a decent alternative to doing nothing.
"these shows now are much more heavily into promoting someone's latest book or movie - or even more freqently, another TV show on the same network"
To be fair, that was a lot of what Carson did as well. But you're right that someone like Jimmy Stewart was a lot more interesting than today's vapid flavor of the week.
I kind of alluded to this above, but Carson also gave time to people who, I believe, genuinely benefited society. Carl Sagan was famously on his show multiple times. He also gave a lot of time to James Randi, including airing Randi's takedowns of Uri Geller and Peter Popoff. Letterman is the only person I can think of today who might, possibly, be willing to do the same thing Carson did: have guests on who are not only entertaining, but challenge the audience. Why he doesn't do that, I can't answer.
I discovered Carson when I was 16. He had been doing the tonight show for about 10 years. I was lucky enough that I lived in the mountain time zone where the Tonight Show came on at 10:30 PM. Being a night owl I often was finishing up my homework while the tonight show played in the background. Some of the best grades and comments from teachers I got were when one-liner jokes from the tonight show worked their way into my homework.
(I scribbled a joke in the margin of a math paper one night, intending to erase it before turning the paper in. I forgot. The teacher loved the joke. It became a thing between us - I would add a joke to my homework papers, he would add one of his own when he returned the paper. I only got a B in the class, but 35 years later that teacher and I are still friends today)
After 20 years of watching Carson the one thing that amazed me about his performances is that he told jokes about, picked on, humiliated, and poked fun at everyone. After 20 years I had no idea what his personal political or religious beleifs were. He didn't care who you were - if he could get a laugh from your discomfort - he did it. And he did it cleanly. Sure his humor was often very suggestive - but he never crossed the line into crude.
I started out liking Leno because he started out the same way. But as the years passed he started letting his personal beliefs and feeling show up in his comedy and monolouges. Eventually I stopped watching.
Finally the best thing about Carson was that he never let his guest forget that they were performers. He didn't just talk to them, he got them to perform - tell jokes, sing, perform in skits, or just make a fool of themselves in front everyone. It wasn't just unending fawning, ego-stroking blather. It was two performers working together to entertain the audiance. No one else has managed to do that.
I can't believe it...
Nobody, I mean NOBODY even mentioned
Arsenio Hall.
just,
WOW
... and I didn't even watch him, either.
Oh... wait...
wrong demographic...
Roseanne Rosanadana/
Nevermind
/Roseanne rosanadana
Rich in NC
(PS I'm 58)
Seeing Jimmy Stewart on Carson read a poem he had written about his dog, Beau...man, I feel in love with that guy. Made me wish he was my grandpaw or something...and love his movies even more.
It's on YouTube...
Jimmy Stewart: Bomber Pilot is a good read...
48 year old white male with 5 kids. Carson wasn't funny all of the time but was entertaining. Leno is funnier onstage than on his show. Class act. I never understood why people thought Fallon was funny-it was a mystery to me why he was so popular on SNL, seems nice-but not funny. Letterman used to be funny but has slowly disintegrated into a politically correct idiot. For outright funniness, my vote is for Craig Ferguson.
Carson was great at the show. Like others said before me, he got the guest involved in the show. Sometimes they would even be the skits he did and his review of toys for Christmas were always funny because he seemed to break at least one of them. My personal opinion is that Leno was an ok replacement for Carson and anyone from the third crew and forward of SNL is waste of time, space, air and money.
I liked Carson. Not terribly funny all the time but okay. Jimmy Fallon(-Gong) just wants to get paid to be a karaoke/cover singer. If he can get paid to do that, more power to him but I'm not going to watch it... TS
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