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Late Night with Jimmy Fallon
Late Night intertitle.
Format	Talk show Variety Show
Created by	Jimmy Fallon
Written by	A. D. Miles (head writer) Bashir Salahuddin[1]
Presented by	Jimmy Fallon
Starring	The Roots (2009 – present)
Narrated by	Steve Higgins (2009 – present)
Opening theme	"Here I Come", The Roots
Country of origin	United States
No. of seasons	2
No. of episodes	209 (as of March 16, 2010) (List of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Lorne Michaels Michael Shoemaker
Producer(s)	Gavin Purcell
Location(s)	Studio 6B in 30 Rockefeller Center New York City
Running time	59 min. (with commercials)
Broadcast
Original channel	NBC
Picture format	480i (SDTV) 1080i (HDTV)
Original run	March 2, 2009 – present
Chronology
Preceded by	Late Night with David Letterman (1982 – 1993) Late Night with Conan O'Brien (1993 – 2009)
External links
Official website

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon is an American late-night talk show hosted by Jimmy Fallon on NBC. The show premiered on March 2, 2009, as the third incarnation of the Late Night franchise originated by David Letterman.

The program airs weeknights at 12:35am Eastern/11:35pm Central in the United States.^[2] Former host Conan O'Brien departed on February 20 to begin preparations for The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien.

Format

The show begins with the opening sequence as Steve Higgins announces that night's guests and "the legendary Roots crew". Just before Higgins introduces Fallon, the camera cuts to a shot of The Roots, whom then shout three numbers symbolizing the episode number of "Late Night" (though other numbers and statements have been shouted in place based on current events and historical show moments.) Higgins then introduces Fallon, who begins his nightly monologue. Fallon often gives the cue cards for a joke to audience members if the joke falls particularly flat. Fallon's monologue is usually short, followed by a brief comedy sketch, or alternatively, going over the night's guest and conversing with Higgins or members of The Roots.

After the show's first break, it returns and begins a comedy sketch. During its run, Mondays were usually reserved for the show's The Hills parody, 7th Floor West. Fridays are also reserved for Fallon to write thank you notes to figures that have given him material for the past week. He also typically has the entire crew of the show write letters home. Occasionally the show features extra skits such as "Wheel of Carpet Samples", "Cell Phone Shootout", "Lick it for Ten", or "Hot Dog in a Hole".

After the sketch ends and a commercial break follows, the first guest will arrive. That guest will most often stay after the next break, and a second guest will enter after the show's fourth break. Once these interviews have been completed and the show has taken its fifth and final commercial break, the musical guest (or sometimes, a chef) will perform. Jimmy Fallon will return once the musical guest has finished and bid the viewers farewell. As credits roll, Fallon runs up and down the stairs of the studio giving high fives to the audience before exiting backstage.

History

Executive producer Lorne Michaels said he wanted Fallon to be the new host dating back to the day that Fallon left Saturday Night Live in 2004,^[3] which occurred only a few months before O'Brien's departure was announced.^[4] According to Michaels:^[3]

During the years between Fallon's SNL departure and the announcement that he would take over Late Night, Fallon concentrated on developing a feature film career, which Fallon himself said "really didn't work out that great."^[3]

Fallon was announced as O'Brien's replacement in May 2008; at the time of the announcement, he was scheduled to debut in June 2009.^[5] To help him prepare for his new Late Night host role, Michaels had Fallon perform stand-up comedy in clubs and create a series of webisodes.^[3] A behind-the-scenes vlog documenting preparations for the new show launched on December 8, 2008, with new episodes being posted weeknights at 12:30 a.m. ET.^{[citation needed]}

On January 8, 2010, Fallon announced that the show would be bumped to a 1:05am start time, with the move of The Jay Leno Show to 11:35pm and subsequent bump of The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien to 12:05am start. ^[6] This proved to be false, as O'Brien refused the change, which resulted in Conan leaving The Tonight Show. Jay Leno returned to the Tonight title on March 1.

Notable episodes

• On August 14, 2009, Late Night aired its 100th episode.
• On January 22, 2010, Late Night began with a cold open (a rare occurrence for the show) with Fallon and the Roots visiting Studio 6A, the former home of Late Night with Conan O'Brien. They sang "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday" as a tribute song to O'Brien, whose final episode as host of The Tonight Show had just concluded. When introducing the show, Roots drummer Questlove placed a placard of O'Brien over his face.
• On March 2, 2010, Late Night celebrated its first year anniversary.
• On March 3, 2010, Late Night aired its 200th episode.
• On March 4, 2010, Jimmy reunited the cast of "California Dreams"
• On March 9, 2010, Jimmy, during a martini race with Chelsea Handler, slipped and fell down on stage, dropping three martini glasses, cutting his hand. After a commercial break, Jimmy was seated at his desk, with a bandage around the cut hand. The next day, The Roots performed the show with bandages on (Questlove shouted "Ow, ow, ow" instead of the episode number 205).

Production

The program originates from NBC Studio 6B in the GE Building at 30 Rockefeller Center in New York City, the original home of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, which was not the studio from which Late Night had been broadcast since 1982, but which had housed the WNBC news studios since Carson had moved his show to Burbank, California, in 1972.^[7] Fallon's house band is hip-hop band The Roots,^[7] and his announcer is Steve Higgins, a producer for Saturday Night Live.^[8] The show is produced by Lorne Michaels' Broadway Video in association with NBC's Universal Media Studios.

Fallon premiered on March 2, 2009, with Robert De Niro, Justin Timberlake and Van Morrison appearing as his guests. Former Late Night host Conan O'Brien also made a cameo appearance in the beginning.^[9]

Reception

Debut episode

The debut episode received mixed reviews and was considered to have "arrived needing plenty of work".^[10] Critics noted that Jimmy Fallon was understandably nervous, but "remains nothing if not personable".^[10] Interaction with the show's house band, The Roots was applauded and it was noted that "a bit in which Fallon sang a "slow jam" version of the news succeeded, in large part, thanks to Roots' typically taut playing and singer Tariq 'Black Thought' Trotter's impeccable voice and surprisingly good comic timing".^[11] Critics commented that "the late-night role seems on the face of it a good fit" for Jimmy Fallon and that "this is a form that develops in the fullness of time, as chances are taken and limits tested and you learn the things you can learn only in the doing, night after night".^[12] The series as whole so far has scored a 49/100 on Metacritic, and viewers scoring it at a 4.0/10.^[13]

Ratings

Despite cautious reviews, the show was a ratings favorite during its premiere week. The show outperformed its main competitor, CBS's The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, by half a million viewers. Fallon also managed a higher viewer total than his predecessor, Conan O'Brien. Fallon's total viewer count was 21% higher than Conan O'Brien's 1,991,000 Late Night average this season.^[14] Fallon maintained his lead over Ferguson until the night of March 16 when The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson attracted a larger audience (1.47 vs. 1.27 million viewers).^[15]

For the week July 27-July 31, 2009, Late Night was the ratings leader with a 17 percent lead in adults 18-49 and a 42 percent lead with adults 18-34. Since the show aired on March 2, Fallon has ranked number one or tied Ferguson in these demographics on 97/100 nights.^[16] As of July 30, 2009, Ferguson leads Late Night in total viewers by a 25 percent margin, and eventually by November 13, 2009 overtook Fallon in the 18-49 demographic, according to Entertainment Weekly.^{[citation needed]}

After Jay Leno returned to The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in total viewers “Late Night” (2.0 million viewers overall) out-delivered “Late Late Show” (1.7 million) by a margin of 17 percent the entire first week.^[17]

International broadcasts

Country/Region	TV Network(s)	Weekly Schedule (local time)
Australia	The Comedy Channel	Weeknights 11.15pm[18]
Arab World	OSN Comedy	Weeknights 07.00 pm[19]
Canada	A	Weeknights 12.35am[20]
Finland	TV Viisi	Tuesday to Saturday 11.00pm
Portugal	SIC Radical	Weeknights 08.44pm
Philippines	JackTV	Tues to Sat 2.00pm[21]

See also

• List of sketches from Late Night with Jimmy Fallon
• List of late night network TV programs
• List of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon episodes

References

External links

• Official website
• Late Night with Jimmy Fallon at the Internet Movie Database
• Late Night with Jimmy Fallon at TV.com