John Walters is a writer and author, primarily of sports. He is the founder of mediumhappy. He holds a B. Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. With those words the next era of late-night television's most venerable franchise was launched at the stroke of midnight.
Jimmy Fallon, still not yet 40 years old and equally beloved by both Williamsburg hipsters and Compton gangstas, has arrived although he never really left, not even the building. Returning to its ancestral birthplace, Manhattan, after a year exile in the wilderness of Burbank, Calif.
There was grandeur: U2 performed from atop 30 Rockefeller Center, 70 stories above terra firma, as the sun set over the city of blinding lights behind them. There was also inspiration. During his opening monologue Fallon introduced his parents, who were seated in the audience, and noted that he is 39 years old. Indeed, Fallon's default expression is "boyishly giddy" and the overwhelming odor that he emits is a refreshing whiff of "nice.
Unlike David Letterman, who launched the program that he just departed, or Jay Leno, who just left the program that Fallon is inheriting, stand-up is not Fallon's muse. Music is. He'd rather perform a "History of Rap" medley with good friend Justin Timberlake than he would read a Top 10 list or an unintentionally hilarious newspaper headline or, well, just about anything.
Like the city to which Fallon returned Tonight, he is a repository of manic energy and that fuel served him well with his a. How Fallon adjusts to an earlier time slot and a relatively more mature audience remains to be seen. He is effortlessly likable because, as his first guest Will Smith mentioned, he genuinely seems to want to please people. But Fallon is still far too nervous an interviewer. Nerves compel Fallon to interrupt his guests or stammer. It feels at times as if you are watching a bad cell-phone connection played out face-to-face, or a nervous seventh-grade boy trying to hold a conversation with the hot girl.
