The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon
>> Sunday, February 23, 2014
When Jimmy Fallon first started on The Late Night Show, I wasn't impressed and I didn't know why he deserved The Roots, but overtime he proved himself to be energetic, creative, talented and most important of all... funny. Also, he seemed to be an exceptionally genuine and nice person, pretty unusual for show business.
Mind you, I kinda "grew up" on Leno. When I first came to the States, watching Leno pretty much helped me with my listening skills. Every night, his opening monologue helped me learned the American culture but over the years Leno grew less and less funny and become the pompous ass that we came to know. His bits has gotten old, mostly making fun of the dumb and stupid. The whole Leno/O'Brien thing had left a bad taste in everyone's mouth. Things got even worst after band leader Kevin Eubanks left.
So I'm very happy that Jimmy got the Tonight Show spot, not happy enough to watch his show airing live since I have to go to bed around 11pm to get up and get to work by 8am. And even if I'm up, I would probably be watching Stewart/Colbert but I can always get it On Demand. The show doesn't seemed to be designed for a younger, more liberal crowd. I mean thus far we've seem some recurring skits from the Late Night Show happening here. #Hashtag, the evolution of dance, history of rap. Comparing to Leno, we see a lot more reference to the African-American culture. I mean, sure Leno's Tonight show band were mostly comprised with African Americans as is The Roots, but Will Smith, Roots, Michelle Obama and rap in just the first week? The funny thing is during this clip, Justin and Jimmy went out to the audience who, other than the lady who worked there was nearly 100% white. You can see a 60+ white guy trying to bounce to the rap and you can tell he never had to do that before.
Of course, it's great to see more people of color on TV, I just hope the American population feels the same way.
