Late Night Talkshows: Fallon vs. 'The Veterans'

I'm talking about the really late shows, even though 'really late at 12:35' isn't late at all if you're nocturnal or caught up in something.  Craig Ferguson is the veteran of that time-slot. Conan is obviously out of it for good now. Fallon is the plucky newcomer. These three names mean (or meant) late night TV.

Craig Ferguson is probably the best interviewer on TV right now. I don't know if he manipulates the guest or the situation but generally his interviews are enjoyable to watch, he remains very funny, involves the guest and doesn't fall back on hack discussion half as much as anyone. Of course that approach isn't 100% successful, and there are still interviews where I know I'd be better off brushing my teeth and going to sleep. His openings can throw off newcomers who expect things of TV, but the show despite its grim set is mostly fantastic. There's a type of weirdness that's unlike Conan O'Brien - in some ways more direct. I realize weirdness is subjective, but if anyone has a monopoly on weird puppets it is Ferguson.

Fallon replaced Conan in 2009 and it was lamentable how it worked out in the end, but the important thing is that in many ways his show (especially in the last few months) has supplanted the hipness factor of Conan. The fact that The Roots play on the show is mind-boggling, and Fallon and guests graciously remember to acknowledge that. Of course that also lets you know that the show is backed all the way. It's less vicariously crazy than Ferguson, and less subtly oddball (?) than Conan was, but it works.

I don't know why people dumped on Fallon so much at the start. I get the feeling many of them are Conan loyalists and the rest didn't like Conan anyway and just carried over the old prejudices. Fallon's definitely nervous on TV and this is even true a year later, but if anything that humanizes the man. Just because Larry Sanders was on laudanum or Xanax all the time and Letterman and Leno know how to work crowds does not mean that Fallon is totally incapable of being on TV.

Sure, Fallon does not always nail interviews. Ferguson outclasses him here in all respects, but Ferguson's show caters to a different audience. Fallon's interviews are usually on par with Leno and Letterman, and sometimes he gets a better reaction. The games he plays with guests can be seen as gimmicks, but they do create instant rapport and more importantly they shake up the format; the late night TV format can be very grim if the guests are bored or jaded, or the host is hungover.

Fallon's monologue delivery seems absolutely canned in comparison to Ferguson or Conan or even L&L on a good night. This is more or less what I would expect from somebody whose background in stand-up isn't particularly outstanding. Also, and you hear this a lot, he has some dead weight writers which make the problem worse than it is. If he got better material to open with I think he could do it justice.

Jimmy Fallon banks on his impersonations, especially during the opening sequence. Most of the time they are on the right note. Recently he did Neil Young and sang with Bruce Springsteen which was probably one of the best things I've seen on late night TV. That anecdote brings me to the other focus of the show: music. No other late night talk-show is as intense about it.

The whole Bruce Springsteen episode also highlights the guests on Fallon's show, who used to all be character actors from SNL but now are actually real celebrities. It's largely what you'd expect to see on a 'hip' 'youth-segment' type of show, but it's usually a good lineup.

I've been watching this show more often since August '10 and I have to say it is sporadically brilliant. There was a Hubble Space Telescope Rap which sounds like a failure waiting to happen but was actually good. There was an audience claque in one instance who went into free-associative rants with Fallon, and then walked out in affront after getting out-rhymed, which was an honest attempt at hilarity. To me, it was a rousing success, because I actually laughed after 12 on a weekday. So you know not all the writers are slacking.

The Clip Remixes on Thursdays are worth seeing at least once. If the clips don't amuse, the technical prowess of Questlove is a treat. The audience contests get a little too 'zany' sometimes, but you have to admire the effort that goes into some of them, and some of the contests deliver. I wouldn't be surprised if Jimmy Fallon becomes established in 2 years or moves on due to uncontrollable, crushing anxiety. Either way he has a show he can be 50% proud of.

Some Thoughts re. Music, Pt.1

Hell, everyone made such a big deal of the Exile on Main Street re-release this past summer (or was it the one before?) that you'd almost think it was being released for the first time and that the Rolling Stones were still kids shooting up heroin in dirtied, sleepy rooms. People were getting so excited that all you had to say was "Turd" and someone would shout at you, "Turd on the Run, man! Wicked song." all seriously. Drunks for the most part or poseurs I suppose.

Bruce Springsteen released the re-release of Darkness on the Edge of Town just recently, people shat. And hell, it's Bruce Springsteen, so you can't really complain or you'll be branded a communist, but what's worse, a communist with no sense of fun. I can take the first part of that insult very well, but I do have a sense of fun. It's just mostly dormant until I get some momentum.

Why am I writing about two completely different (sure, music journalists, sure) musical entities? Because the Stones had Sweet Virginia, which was an awesome song. Follow this line of logic: Awesome song + cover version by established artist = Sweet Virginia covered by Springsteen. It wouldn't even be an experiment because we know how it would end. We don't need an hypothesis for this one. If only good things happened more often...

Instead of re-releases. Oh, sure. They're great things. Maybe sound has to be shoehorned now and then, I don't know. Maybe roughness is unacceptable in the era of auto-tune and overproduction. Again, I have no idea what. I just like to say a thing or two about some things, now and then, on a blog, because I am a sloppy blogger, and that's exactly the sort of thing a sloppy blogger does.

I am a Sloppy Blogger

Yep. I'm a sloppy blogger. You don't see my kind too often. Obviously, you don't see them because they don't post and don't offer explanations for silence. Sloppy bloggers are a bit like lovers - if you don't like them, you don't care about the infrequency because it doesn't bother you if they are really dead or onto some new thing. However, if you do like sloppy bloggers, absence will make your heart grow so fond that you will tell other people about this guru-style blogger who posts three times a month and writes about nothing. You will understand that the rigours of actually living are too much sometimes. Maybe you have some idea about the north American economy. Acronymed : the nAe. Mind capitalization or it could actually refer to a real thing.

So in my own grand tradition of coining words I hereby coin: sloppy blogger. That's my term and I invented it. Unlike other even better words and terms and phrases, I will allow this one to be public, because it needs to be given actual life that only the internet can provide.