The Associated Press confirmed Sunday that Fallon indeed will succeed Conan
on Late Night, with a news conference planned for Monday to announce the
arrangement, according to "a person close to the negotiations who spoke on
condition of anonymity because the announcement hadn't been made."
On 2008-05-06 1:30 p.m., Joseph Nebus verbated:
> Has Jimmy Kimmel got something that really powerfully commends
> him to a talk show host role?
I assume you meant Fallon, not Kimmel. I, too, have been wondering how
Fallon became the overwhelming favorite to succeed Conan. It seemed that
no
other potential candidates even came within shouting distance of Fallon.
Fallon's body of work on ``Saturday Night Live'' certainly qualifies him
for consideration to star in a show of some sort, but it would be a
stretch
to say that anything in his ****tfolio ``powerfully commends'' him to host
a
late-night comedy/talk show in particular. On SNL he showed evidence of an
endearingly goofy, devil-may-care charm in lots and lots of sketches. He
also co-hosted Weekend Update with Tina Fey (badly, in my opinion, because
he couldn't keep a straight face while delivering the punch lines), and
flashed an Adam Sandler-esque talent for musical parody.
Other qualifications: Fallon is young (born in 1974), likeable, and
familiar to the 18-to-49 age group that NBC targets for Late Night. I'd
guess he has a very strong Q rating. His post-SNL work has been slow so
far, so it's not like he'd be trading down to take the Late Night job.
Something that should not be underestimated is that Lorne Michaels thinks
highly of Fallon, and Lorne has a lot of pull with the NBC folks. As we
know, Lorne's opinion paved the way for Conan's selection, survival, and
eventual success as host of Late Night.
Will Fallon be up to the task of hosting an hour-long show five nights a
week? I guess we'll find out when the time comes. Presumably, NBC did some
preliminary testing to see how Fallon would handle himself in hosting
responsibilities such as interviewing, interplay with the audience, etc.,
and was satisfied with what it saw. And it's not like there's a certain
work background that foretells success as a talk-show host. Almost no one
thought Conan was right for the job at first, and he turned out
splendidly.
All in all, I'd rather see Fallon take a crack at it than less-funny guys
like, say, Carson Daly or Ryan Seacrest.
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