I guess People offered the gang more money than they could get out of Late Night, but the magazine reportedly does briefly mention Fallon's reunion quest while still basically pretending the entire thing was its editors' own idea. But there is hope for Jimmy Fallon: the absence of Screech in People does bode well for an actual real full-on reunion on his show. And he has Mr. Belding, too!

And I'm not exactly sure why this exists, other than because of a desire on Tiffani's part to have her own viral video like her former co-star Mark Paul Gosselaar did when he appeared on Jimmy Fallon's show in character as Zack Morris from Saved By The Bell - but I'm a sucker for any Indigo Girls joke. And despite a little too much self-congratulation masked as self-parody (Funny Or Die's bread and butter these days), this does have its funny moments. Cat videos!:

That's a question we've been asking ourselves a lot over the last few days. We love Letterman. We also love Conan. We've never really been forced to confront this sort of dilemma previously. In the past the question of who to watch at 11:35 was a no-brainer—-Johnny Carson was the only show in town during his era, and Letterman was always matched up against Leno, his comedic antithesis in just about every way, so usually we watched Letterman on CBS at 11:35 and then switched over NBC to catch Conan at 12:37. It was all so fantastically fine.

But now there's this new thing and we don't know quite what to do. This is like that time Hulk Hogan squared off against Andre The Giant for the WWF title when we were kids—-We didn't know who the hell to pull for!

We can, however, take solace in knowing that we aren't the only ones confused by all this. New York has a feature in their new issue by Sam Anderson addressing the same subject.

Now we have to adjust to a new binary: Letterman versus Conan. (Leno will take his show to prime time, where he enters into a new binary with a bunch of sausage-grinder franchises like Law & Order and CSI.) On the surface, Letterman-Conan is infinitely less dramatic than Letterman-Leno; the intensities have all dropped out of the equation. They are not peers-when Letterman started his first late-night show, O'Brien was at Harvard studying Faulkner and writing Lettermanesque humor for the Lampoon. There's no obvious bad blood-Letterman was an early Conan supporter, and, just as Letterman once paid tribute to the retiring Carson ("Thanks for my career"), Conan spent much of his recent Late Night farewell speech gushing over Dave ("David Letterman invented this Late Night show … He set the bar absurdly high for everybody in my generation who does this"). Their stylistic differences will create very few rifts between friends and neighbors. Conan speaks fluently in the late-night language Letterman invented: cerebral non sequiturs; field trips in search of real-world absurdities; forays through the bowels of the studio to interrupt other shows. Both hosts morph into clingy nerds when faced with beautiful actresses. (Conan once screamed like a linebacker and threw his chair after Rebecca Romijn kissed him.) Conan is in many ways a mini-Letterman: tall, lanky, red-haired, stunty, smart. If Letterman-Leno felt like a decades-long slow-motion death match, Letterman-Conan threatens to be its opposite: sweet, cute, possibly even boring.

The most tantalizing possible outcome of the Letterman-Conan binary is that it will force Letterman, at this late stage in the game, to get better. To stand out against the background of Jay, Dave just had to be Dave. To compete with a younger, hungrier version of himself, he might have to do more than that, for the first time in years. The similarities might turn out to be a blessing: Their stunts will cross-pollinate, their jokes will play against each other. To differentiate themselves, they may even have to launch an arms race of total absurdity.

We'd like to just state here and now that we have no issue whatsoever in "an arms race of total absurdity." In fact, we encourage it. Please fellas, indulge us. And as for who to watch, we suppose that we can just DVR one or both shows and watch one at 11:35 and the other at 12:37, because we usually have to be kinda stoned to get into Craig Ferguson and Jimmy Fallon's show just, you know, fucking sucks.

Letterman vs. Mini-Letterman [New York]

First, the inevitable viral Digital Short that happens when Justin Timberlake hosts: Timeberlake and Andy Samberg reunite for the "Dick In A Box" sequel, "Motherlover." Cameos from perennial MILF's Patricia Clarkson and Susan Sarandon, masterful comedy.

The show cold-opened with Will Forte as Tim Geithner in a relatively highbrow sketch about a banking stress test. Forte's Geithner impersonation wasn't perfect - or close, for that matter - but the jokes were both fairly topical and spot-on.

JT opened the show with the old standby I'm-Always-On-SNL shtick repeat hosts get to pull at some point. Typically, this is the kind of staid, old, boring shit SNL's writers lean on to devote energy towards other material that isn't funny, either. But: pair it with a musical bend and an effortlessly, ridiculously charismatic Timberlake, and it floats.

More cameos and Star Trek topicality on Weekend Update: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, and Leonard Nimoy. Finally, the stars get to slag on the fundamentalist fanboy Trekkies who're trashing the franchise's epic revitalization. Fun: watch Keenan Thompson break character at Nimoy's surprisingly decent comedic chops.

Finally, Jimmy Fallon pops in for another Barry Gibb Talk Show with Timberlake. Slightly meandering at times, but the overall effect of seeing (A) Fallon playing characters again and (B) anything that involves Justin Timberlake singing on the show plays well is a nice reminder of the glory days. It's too bad SNL has to keep dipping into the (fairly recent) past to unearth a quality hour of TV, but we'll take what we can get.

Fallon's flack talks to P6 today about how the woefully inadequate replacement for Conan O'Brien was kicked out of NYC pizza joint Posto, but totally leaves out any mention of what one tipster told us was a "nice little fistfight" afterwards:

"they could not have been any ruder. The hostess who asked him to leave was seemingly gleeful about it. Jimmy is never going back to Posto," Fallon's rep told Page Six

Blah blah blah. The fight man, what about the fight? Fallon's been quiet about it on Twitter so far. But! Another tipster spotted him after the incident and pronounced his face shiner-free:

I saw Jimmy Fallon with his wife at JFK this morning (Sunday) at 6am. We were both online at American's First Class Check in. Other than being really tired, like all of us having to be there at that hour, I didn't notice any injuries or evidence of fight. I'm sure his travel/airline etc is checkable. I wrote this note only b/c I was amused by the coincidence of seeing him this morning and now reading the post (I'm in SF at the moment) ….

Fallon is indeed on vacation this week. So come out with it, Jimmy: what happened out there? Twitter it or email us at once, or you're scared. Playground rules. [Previously]

The arch satirical news outlet ran a funny video on its site early this week, a report (from former CNN anchor Bobbie Batista!) that the Franz Kafka airport alienated its passengers with strange rules and surreal trips into the horrors of the mind. You know, like a Kafka story.

Fallon (or, more likely, someone on his writing staff) apparently just grazed that headline on some blog and wrote a joke that "it must be bad, because the second worst airport is the Hudson River." Har har. It's pretty clear that Fallon wasn't ripping off the Onion's joke because, um, he didn't seem to get it. But still, this is pretty sloppy, even for the puppyish newbie.

[via Dumb as a Blog]

See the clips below.

Onion News Network segment

Fallon clip (starts at 2:17)

Fey, a total talk show pro at this point, regaled the crowd with stories that highlighted her ordinary-ness: Gawking at stars at the Oscars, dodging drunks, raising her three-year old daughter and just generally not knowing what the deal is with professional vampire Robert Pattinson, of Twilight.

Fallon too often tended toward the opposite, complaining about his showbiz hours and getting way too deep into chummy inside-NBC stories with Fey.

But most of all, the Late Night host needed to quit with the over-laughing. The home audience chuckles more easily if Fallon isn't having a conniption every time his guest says something mildly amusing.

Still: He got Tina Fey on. For like 15 minutes, it felt like! So at least Fallon's viewers were laughing pretty hard too.

Fallon's scored a 2.3 rating which is an improvement, for now, on Conan's 1.7 average—we imagine that people will be less endeared to Fallon than they were to Conan, and will stop coming back once the new car smell disappears and the early slate of big guests has been cleared.

As far as his competition goes, Jimmy Kimmel, who starts a half hour earlier on ABC, drew a 2.5 rating with a synergistic stunt booking of the Bachelor on the same night as that show's finale. But over on CBS, Paris Hilton was no draw for Ferguson, scoring 35% fewer viewers than Fallon.

But still, good on the new late-night kid. He didn't flop or embarrass himself. Maybe once he gets his obvious nerves under control, the show can settle into a comfortable pace and work on slowly building a cultish audience.

[THR]

The biggest weakness on the show is relatively easy to fix: Crowd control. The rowdy studio audience was way too pumped up, interrupting Fallon to cheer their home states (why do late show audiences always do this?) and to ruin one of his jokes with a well-timed "yeaaaaah!"

Also, the audience microphones were up way too loud; TV viewers could clearly hear chatter and exhaling noises between Fallon's jokes.

Fallon also needs work on his interview skills. His sit-down with Robert DeNiro, for example, was pretty awful. DeNiro barely got a word in edgewise as Fallon defined "Tribeca," told a pointless story about another celebrity (Jack Nicholson), recounted a pedestrian joke DeNiro made on email and at one point said, "I don't know what I'm asking." (DeNiro's laconic manner was maybe part of a meta-joke about how he doesn't talk? It was still awkward.)

The skit "lick it for $10," in which studio audience members lick products made by (we're guessing) show sponsors was a total write-off even though it followed the first commercial break — a prime piece of show real estate.

Picking these sorts of nits is, again, too easy with a brand-new host. On the bright side:

• The news "slow jam," performed with The Roots, was inspired. It looks like Fallon plans to make heavy use of his excellent house band, which should keep the show interesting and lively.
• Fallon imitated DeNiro to his face. It wasn't a great impersonation, but being willing to make an utter fool out of yourself can come in handy for a late-night host.
  
• The monologue felt vaguely Weekend Update-y, which is good in the sense that there were at least two really solid jokes. Fallon just needs to slow down from the fast delivery customary at Saturday Night Live's fake news desk
• Pushing Justin Timberlake to make fun of other singers shows good instincts. Good luck trying to get other celebrities to play ball with that sort of concept.
• The opening skit with Conan O'Brien was great, but Fallon has to share credit with his predecessor.

Obviously, Fallon will have to rein it in. He can't be cracking up at his own jokes as he did on SNL. But maybe he can turn nerdishness in his favor.

Fallon's co-producer, G4 channel (read: nerd TV) veteran Gavin Purcell, walked Silicon Alley Insider's Nicholas Carlson through part of the strategy:

• The show will respond rapidly to internet memes, like "Kenneth" from 30 Rock appeared on a test show less than 24 hours after the "Bobby Jindal sounds like Kenneth the Page" observation spread all over the internet.
  
• The shoe will embrace gadgetry: A skit in a test show hinged on Skype video conferencing; Fallon's producers would also like to book nerd-friendly guests like Apple CEO Steve Jobs and Amazon's Jeff Bezos.
  
• The show hired a bunch of bloggers (to blog) and is on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Basically all TV shows are trying to jump on various online bandwagons these days but it sounds like Fallon is pushing further, faster.

Gillian Reagan of the Observer also noticed some of Fallon's geek moves back in January:

• Fallon promoted his show on the Diggnation podcast.
  
• The host created a War of Warcraft character, and videoblogged about it.
  
• He said during a winter press junket, "I think our show is going to bea lot more tech, gadgetry talk."

Fallon still needs traditional showbiz skills. During his most last appearance on predecessor Conan O'Brien's Late Night, his raw-nerved jumpiness was almost frightening.

But Fallon's been practicing, making a series of Webisodes, which seems to have improved his delivery over time. And as the old SNL clip below illustrates, he's worked his geeky side effectively in the service of comedy before.

The videos are still not laugh out loud (that's old person talk for LOL, kids and area idiots) funny or anything. They remain oddly muted and affable in a close-to-irritating way. But Fallon is somewhat charming after a time. What makes me think that this slight hint of something will carry over well on his show is that he's particularly good at interacting with other people which, you know, is a handy skill to have when hosting a talk show.

I mean, I usually stopped watching Conan after his gonzo opening sketches had ended—who really cares what catastrophic movie Kate Hudson is promoting—so I am finding it a bit strange that I'm looking forward to interviews... conducted by Jimmy f'ing Fallon. But there's something a little twinkly and wry behind those Pound Puppy eyes of his. I think he'll be good at quietly mocking guests as they giddily dig themselves in deeper and deeper, a la David Letterman. And I am won over to the idea that he really is a nice guy (that point is laid on laboriously thick in the vlog bits), so I don't think it will be snide or crass, the way it can be on Leno sometimes. No, I'm storing up hope that Fallon will be a warm and chuckle-worthy riverboat guide into dreamy sleepland. Conan will provide the genuine funny, it'll be an hour earlier than it usually is, and I won't have to deal with the loud, ham-fisted incompetence of that Carson Daly character.

So yeah. Watch the videos and see if you get what I mean. I'm probably crazy, and it probably doesn't bode well for a show that you have to watch dozens of web videos when you're bored and hungover in order to sorta like its star, but oh well.

The rest of the week has some more dependably upbeat bets, including Fallon's former Weekend Update co-anchor Tina Fey and Fever Pitch co-star and producer-in-law, Drew Barrymore. Barrymore is something of a Late Night early-guest good luck charm, having appeared on Conan's very first episode, and that got us thinking about some other legendary First Guests.

Bill Murray on Late Night with David Letterman, 1982. Perhaps the greatest First Guest of all time, Murray kicked off both of Dave Letterman's longtime late night ventures. On the very first Late Night, accompanied by a musical ode to his SNL lounge singer, a mostly incoherent and playfully argumentative Murray suggests the host looks "sedated," before the two segue into a gripping conversation about playing with lint, a longer diatribe about Dave selling out (we think?), and ending on a pledge to make Letterman's life a living hell. Score: 2 1/2 Joaquins out of a possible five, and lots of fun!

Billy Crystal on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, 1992. An unbelievably prescient Crystal opens with, "I saw Ed McMahon on the corner with a sign that says, 'Will announce for food.'"

Bill Murray on Late Show with David Letterman, 1993. Letterman then invited Murray back to kick off things at his new home on CBS. Murray's shtick is a lot more thought out this time around—he arrives jogging and breathless, explaining "I went to the other place." We then cut to some video of Murray in a hardhat among the crew of construction guys who refurbished the Ed Sullivan Theater. His big finish, which isn't in the video, involved spraypainting Dave's name on his brand new desk. Somehow, it came off as funny, not just pointless and mean-spirited, like the Kevin Spacey Jamba Juice-dumping fiasco.

Goldie Hawn on The Chevy Chase Show, 1993. Widely considered to be one of the most disastrous late show guest appearances—much less First Guest appearances—of all time was when Goldie Hawn kicked things off on The Chevy Chase Show. In rolled-up Daisy Dukes, she talks for what like seems an eternity on the magic of child-rearing, then presents her son with a birthday cake and everyone sings "Happy Birthday to You." Chevy drops the cake, they dance to "La Bamba," a stage manager brings out the real birthday cake, the show cuts to commercial, and you watch in horrified amazement.

Will Ferrell on The Megan Mullally Show, 2006. Want to know how we know Will Ferrell is a good guy? He'll agree to be the first guest on your new talk show, even though it's on in the afternoon, and you're Megan Mullally. You want to know how we know he's a great guy? He does it in American Apparel briefs, and brings a dozen long-stemmed roses. And a taped X keeping his mic on his chest. Couldn't save the show, but it's the thought that counts.

• De Niro, Morrison first guests for Fallon's show [Yahoo]

The network has informed the band that they'll not pay any licensing fees for published music. So forget clever musical guest introductions, like scoring Miley Cyrus's entrance to "Feeling Japanese," or bringing audiences in from commercial with a rousing, Paul Schafferesque take on "Werewolves of London." Rather, the band will have to perform a new, unrecorded composition every single time:

NBC will no longer pay for published music: That means, the only thing that the Roots can play are original songs. "We have to write 200 new songs, which will probably last about a year," he says. "We've written about 55 so far." [...]

The Roots are booked for five years: "I think if Jimmy turns on the charm like he did on Saturday Night Live, I'm almost certain that this show will work. Anything can happen. Knock on wood that this isn't the Chevy Chase Show or [Magic Johnson's] Magic Hour.

Or, heaven forfend, Thicke of the Night. Did anyone else's knees buckle when they heard the number five years, though? Forgetting for a moment the 1000 new compositions the Roots will be forced to produce as Jeff Zucker cracks a whip in their sweatshop composition room; we just don't know if we can take half-a-decade of SNL-era Fallon charm. Didn't the American people just issue an overwhelming mandate for change?

• The Roots' ?uestlove Talks Late Night With Jimmy Fallon [Rolling Stone]

· You know when someone does a funny bit, and then goes on with it so long it ceases to be funny, then continues until it actually becomes funny again? This Jimmy Fallon parody of the Christian Bale rant is exactly like that, minus the first and last parts.
· The AP is suing HOPE poster dude/Coachella performer/shamelessly longwinded self-promoter Shepard Fairey for using their image without credit or prior permission. Tell Losanjealous how you feel about that in their poll on the matter. (We're firmly Team I totally blame Coldplay!)
· Chewbacca is a gigantic Veronica Mars fan. Don't get him started!
· Michael Phelps has been dumped by Kellogg's over his bong photo, yes. What's more, a 25-year-old Japanese sumo wrestler named Wakakirin was banned from the sport for a weed arrest. When will this insanity stop? Snowboarders—we need your guidance, now more than ever.

That would be NY Times TV critic Virginia Heffernan, who totally friended Late Night with Jimmy Fallon's Facebook page, then posted this to the show's Wall:

Please don't think the idea of "social media space" is so boring that you never look at this page again! The show's going to be great. Your Facebook fan and friend, Virginia

We'll leave the issue of whether or not fawning Facebook testimonials present a conflict of interest to the media-ethics-watchdog-types always hounding us for donations outside Johnny Rockets. Instead, let's just rejoice that Fallon has finally found in Heffernan a vocal champion to offset any ego-bruising incurred during the "Jimmy is a douchebag who doesn't deserve this job" incident. We look forward to her review of the Late Night premiere, in which she'll write of how the host holds "a magnetic spell over his audience, every sheepish smile and mischievous glance acting like a pleasurable poke in the ribs that you're instantly compelled to return."

• NYT’s Virginia Heffernan shows her support for Jimmy Fallon’s show. [made-up m3m0ries]

a move essentially relegating him to the role of Rockefeller Center's afterhours janitor.

("Leno goes on for an hour, then the news, then Conan for another hour, and we're just ramping it up! People are going to be ready for another hour of talk.") But he also introduced a feature we hope becomes a staple both online and on the air: Vicious commenter mailbag!

"Douchebag" or not, Fallon seems to have rebounded pretty quickly from the brutalizing that continues to plague his early preparations for his show, suggesting that a regular appearance by his anonymous tormentors may be worthy, entertaining 45 seconds of nightly fill. Plus they're easy to book and won't trash the green room. That said, Jimmy, proceed with caution: As one friend of Defamer can attest from experience, all that mounting negativity can produce an awfully slippery slope. Come to think of it, maybe you should save it for your imminent late-career reality show. Your call.

• DECEMBER 9 VIDEO BLOG - DAY 2! [NBC]

First, there was the mushroom cloud hanging over Burbank, as Jeff Zucker announced NBC would be scaling back production of hours of original programming, then proceeded to shitcan about everyone except Ben Silverman, before triumphantly revealing his amply-chinned endgame: Keeping Jay Leno in the NBC fold by giving him a five-night-a-week show ("Keep doing what you're doing," went the pitch") in the 10 p.m. slot.

It was a Dick Wolf-coronary-inducing coup that—despite the mildly unpleasant side-effect of completely fucking over Conan O'Brien and reducing the number of hours of scripted NBC entertainment to 10 per week—might one day be heralded as a brilliant triumph. Or a complete fucking disaster.

Who's the biggest loser you can think of? As much as your reflexive instinct is to shout the name "Jimmy Fallon!" in response to that question, we're afraid that's not the case. His new, third hour of NBC's late-night lineup "premiered," as such, last night on the web. Color us asleep—but in the new, improved, all-late-night NBC landscape, any dude with a band-leader and a desk is safe.

No, the biggest loser of course would be SAG members, who called an emergency town hall at the Harmony Gold last night in which, Deadline Hollywood Daily reports, "99% of those who spoke were exceedingly supportive and said 'Yes, we need a strike authorization vote.'"

As the Hot Blog points out, the 10 p.m. slot was the only slot not yet infested by shows featuring obese families dutifully weighing-in or Howie Mandel narrating the gripping selection of numbered-briefcases. Even if the strike didn't happen—and that's looking less and less likely—the announcement of Jay's new strip would give AFTRA a two-hour lead on NBC's primetime programming: 12 hours vs. SAG's 10. Further, were the strike to go through, dual SAG-AFTRA members would be required to go to work under the terms of the AFTRA agreement.

We suppose that makes AFTRA the second-biggest winner here, after NBC. (We're not calling that one for Leno merely for the fact that he's an unknown primetime quantity, and could rapidly lose him momentum once his audience moves beyond "married couples looking for an excuse to avoid sex.") Second-biggest loser, meanwhile, goes to late show bookers. Happy feeding frenzy for the one actor who actually has a project debuting, guys!