It’s been almost a year since Jimmy Fallon was tapped as the new host of NBC’s ‘Late Night’ television broadcast, and almost ten days after predecessor Conan O’Brien departed from the show. Fallon made his debut on Monday with an opening night cast of Robert De Niro and Justin Timberlake, and featuring musical guest Van Morrison. The show aired Monday night at 12:35 ET on NBC, and received mostly luke-warm reviews from critics.
An hour earlier on CBS, the Late Show with David Letterman was kicking off some musical excitement of its own with U2, the superstar band from Ireland, in an unprecedented week long performance. U2 is promoting its new album, “No Line on the Horizon.” “It will be interesting to see if they can make it past Wednesday night,” Letterman joked on Mondays show.
Fallon, a former cast member of Saturday Night Live, with several films to his credit, has picked a long time SNL hand to be his producer. Michael Shoemaker will produce the show with Gavin Purcell, who ran “Attack of the Show” as his co-producer. Lorne Michaels, who was Fallon’s boss on Saturday Night Live, will remain as the “Late Night” executive producer.
With only the exception of excerpts from the monologue, the content of the debut show, based in New York, was not made public until it aired. The show was taped Monday afternoon in the NBC studios in New York and Fallon was admittedly nervous about hosting the much celebrated show. In a recent interview Fallon predicted “I know that I’m going to be reviewed off the first show as opposed to the first couple of months,” “I just want to be said and put out there and then viewers can watch and enjoy the show.”
Fallon’s on air arrival sets in motion a carefully arranged shift by NBC. Conan O’Brien, who took over the “Late Night” show from it’s original host David Letterman in 1993, is now devoting full time to readying his version of the Los Angeles based “Tonight Show” where he will debut as host in June.
“The Tonight Show” veteran host, Jay Leno, will return to the air later this year with a weeknight prime time talk and variety show airing at 10 PM. Leno, who is new to the prime time line-up, will be doing a show that is very similar to the “Tonight Show,” and it will be his prime-time debut as host of his own show.
