The Jimmy Fallon Show Experience
Peeking behind the curtains of a late-night talk show.
It was 12th August, the day I first went to a live TV show in New York City. Walking along 5th Avenue, I turned right at 50th St to finally reach the entrance to NBC Studios, the iconic building where The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon is filmed every weeknight.
Upon previously catching a glimpse of the guest list, I was delighted to see Channing Tatum at the top. Tatum is an American actor and film producer who initially got famous from films like Step Up (2006) and Magic Mike (2012), and I had recently watched Fly Me to the Moon (2024) where he co-starred with actress Scarlett Johansson. Most importantly, he was named the “Sexiest Man Alive” by People Magazine in 2012.
During the show, Fallon started off by bringing up his role as Gambit in Deadpool & Wolverine (2024), the highest-grossing film of his career. Tatum talked about how emotional he was about the role, explaining that he had “been trying to play that character for the last 20 years”. He expressed his gratitude for Kevin Feige, current president of Marvel Studios, and Ryan Reynolds, who starred as Deadpool, for making it happen. When further asked about the potential for a standalone movie after the acquisition of 21st Century Fox by Disney in 2019, he playfully mentioned that he would “kill kittens to make that happen.” In hindsight, former US President Donald Trump might have watched this show to get inspiration for the recent debate!
The conversation then moved on to Tatum’s work on last month’s psychological thriller Blink Twice (2024) as tech entrepreneur Slater King. He had worked with director Zoë Kravitz, also his fiancée, commenting that “the movie is her whole personality, and the movie is terrifying”. He further mentioned that the original title of the movie was ‘Pussy Island’, giving the impression that Kravitz has a headstrong personality and a somewhat unconventional approach to directing films. During an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Kravitz stated that “women were offended by the word” and that society is not ready to embrace it yet, leading her to change the title.
The second guest was Liza Colón-Zayas, an American actress from the Bronx known for playing in the comedy-drama series The Bear (2022) as Tina Marrero. Fallon expressed his excitement for her success as she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series.
Finally, to end the show, the band Lawrence performed their new song “Whatcha Want” from their fourth studio album Family Business. Lawrence is a sibling-duo band founded by Clyde and Gracie Lawrence. Their father Marc Lawrence is a prominent filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer known for movies like Miss Congeniality (2000). Lawrence was part of the audience that night and his presence was acknowledged by Jimmy Fallon throughout the show. Needless to say, towards the end of the show, someone in the audience asked him the typical question of “How do I become a filmmaker?” only to receive the generic answer of “Just keep going.”
The most ironic part about these comedy show tapings was the sign at the front signalling the audience when to laugh. In my opinion, this diminishes the comedic aspect of the show when humour is, at its essence, mostly subjective. On the other hand, it makes perfect sense for a comedy show to have the live audience laugh at everything that has the potential to be amusing to at least one person. Humour is unpredictable. Even when looking at the YouTube videos from this particular show, there are a few clips that were more impactful with millions of views. Others, not so many. When anything has the potential to go viral, every second of the show matters.
From the perspective of contemporary society, social media plays a significant role in comedy, shows, and film. As shortened media content with edited clips of longer videos get more popular over time, watching a live 40-minute running time comedy show could even seem exhausting. One might ask, was it worth it? Yes. Why? It was free! So, if you ever find yourself in NYC, get a ticket to the Jimmy Fallon Show.
