The Tonight Show Premiere

The first episode of the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon aired last night. It makes no sense that NBC is premiering it at midnight while the Olympics are still happening when there's no reason why they couldn't just wait for the Olympics to be over. Not good.

First Guest: Will Smith
First Musical Guest: U2

Here's the beginning of the monologue:



These first shows are never very good. It always takes a while to settle in. Even the crowd was nervously quiet for some reason.

The opening is directed by Spike Lee. The new set looks good. Obviously the large curtain behind the monologue is a throwback to the Johnny Carson days. The Roots are still the band and they've added a brass section (perhaps also a Carson throwback) giving them a very different sound. Speaking of sound, one of my nitpicky complaints about Conan's Tonight Show was that the set made it sound like he was talking from the other end of a large hall - there was always an uncomfortable echo. Fortunately, this set doesn't suffer from that problem.

Would you like to see the full episode? Well, unlike Late Night where all the episodes were posted online, I don't see any corresponding system for The Tonight Show. Definitely a step backward. Ahh, the joys of NBC.

Edit: Although there is no link on the official website, the full episode is on Hulu. Watch it here.