History
The origins of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon were laid in 2004, when NBC announced that Late Night host Conan O'Brien would replace Jay Leno as the host of The Tonight Show in 2009. Fallon, at the time, had just left Saturday Night Live in favor of a movie career. SNL executive producer Lorne Michaels was the first to suggest to the comedian that he'd be perfect to fill O'Brien's empty seat. Michaels said he wanted Fallon to be the new host dating back to the day that Fallon left Saturday Night Live, which occurred only a few months before O'Brien's departure was announced. Michaels, a staunch advocate of Fallon, urged NBC to give Fallon a holding deal in February 2007 so that he couldn't be lured elsewhere.
According to Michaels:
| “ | Jimmy's built for this kind of show. He's funny, he's charming, he's got a really good way of connecting with people. And he knows music, movies and TV really well, which is the backbone of these shows. | ” |
Regardless, Fallon wasn't officially approached by NBC until early 2008. Fallon's movie career, self-admittedly "hadn't worked out that great," and NBC contacted him to become O'Brien's replacement. The network had a couple of other candidates in mind to replace Conan, but Michaels insisted he’d only produce the show with Fallon as host. So in May 2008, NBC announced that Fallon would be O'Brien's replacement, "an announcement that was met with some bewilderment, even snickers," recalled New York. At the time of the announcement, he was scheduled to debut in June 2009. Michaels soon tasked Fallon with "training" for the gig by returning to his stand-up roots; for eight months, Fallon toured college campuses and comedy clubs, where he tested out a new, 50-minute routine. In addition, Michaels and Fallon assembled a "well-pedigreed" team for Late Night, including Steve Higgins, longtime SNL producer Michael Shoemaker as showrunner, and celebrated hip-hop group The Roots as the house band. Before the show debuted, Conan O'Brien sent a plastic pickle to Fallon's office, accompanied by a handwritten note reflecting the ritual: "The Letterman people sent this pickle to my office in 1993. Now I’m passing it on to you. Whenever you leave, which won’t be for a long time, make sure you pass it on to the next sap." In an early sketch about recording promos for the show’s debut, Fallon’s announcer, Steve Higgins, joked: "You loved him on SNL. You hated him in the movies. Now, you’re ambivalent," reflecting the negative public opinion of the show prior to premiering.
The show's position and time slot briefly came under question during the 2010 Tonight Show conflict. Fallon announced that the show would be bumped to a 1:05 am start time, with the move of The Jay Leno Show to 11:35 pm and subsequent bump of The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien to 12:05 am start. This proved to be false, as O'Brien refused the change, citing a reluctance to infringe upon Late Night, and saying it would be "unfair to Jimmy."
Read more about this topic: Late Night With Jimmy Fallon
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