Live-Blogging Fallon

Big night tonight as Late Night with Jimmy Fallon begins, taking over for the great Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Such an occasion calls for a live-blog as we see how many times Fallon laughs uncontrollably during the show, and hold out hope for a Horatio Sanz sighting. He can be the band leader, they can even call him Manuel. I'm serious about that, I'm not just kidding. Anyway, to the live blog!

12:37- Hey it's Conan! Funny cold open but that was thanks to Conan more than Fallon.

12:39- Opening sequence is pretty boring, theme song nothing too special. And now Fallon's going to attempt a monologue. But first introducing his crew, Steve Higgins (former SNL writer who did a lot of voiceovers for the show) as announcer with The Roots as his band, coming to us from Studio 6B in 30 Rock.

12:43- Decent monologue with some hits albeit with some complete whiffs. And now the first feature of the show at the end of the monologue, slow-jamming the news, with Fallon and Malik breaking down a news story and singing it R&B style. Nothing special. A lot of enthusiasm from the crowd, I wonder if they're doing what they did with Conan when they only had family members of the crew in the audience to ensure a positive reaction.

12:46- Fallon at the desk. Target Demographic Blonde Mothers was okay, not sure the relevance, odd. And after the commercial, our 1st game! Wait, what? I guess we'll find out soon enough. If he's going to play live-blog bingo that will be hilarious.

12:52- AND WE'RE BAAACKKKK! He should've said it like that, wasted opportunity. And now we're playing lick it for 10, where audience members lick something and get 10 bucks. Nice super sexy replay. And with the cute girl from Westchester (Yonkers in the house?) up next, I'm looking forward to a super sexy replay of her licking the copy machine. And it doesn't disappoint. And then the last dude licks the goldfish bowl, holy crap that was creepy. What was the point of this exactly? Anyway, DeNiro coming up next.

1:01- DeNiro as a 1st guest is pretty impressive, let's see Fallon's interview skills at work. Interesting choice from a relevance standpoint, but hey, whatever.

1:04- Decent back and forth, about as funny as you can realistically expect with these 2. Now he's plugging the TriBeCa Film Festival. DeNiro really looks thrilled to be there.

1:06- Oh great, Fallon wants to do a DeNiro impression, it sounds nothing like him but DeNiro's Fallon impression is fantastic.

1:12- Space Train, the movie DeNiro and Fallon were in together that was never released. Between Higgins announcing, DeNiro awkwardly doing comedy and Fallon not being funny, it feels like 2003 SNL. Timberlake coming up after the commercial, maybe he can save this show. Maybe there'll be a Gibb sketch?

1:19- Nice touch by The Roots playing a Bee Gees song as Timberlake came out. And he gives Fallon an autographed Barry Gibb picture which will be on his desk forever and ever. Didn't Timberlake have a beard? And sure enough, they're doing more Gibb stuff, this live-blog is omniscient.

1:22- Hey, something funny, as they show a clip from Timberlake's new show The Phone.

1:25- Timberlake shows off the John Mayer impression, this might only be funny because Fallon isn't talking. Timberlake's the man, too bad he couldn't host SNL this season, great Michael MacDonald impression. And again, it doesn't involve Fallon trying to be funny, so good times.

1:30- Musical guest Van Morrison, got to be honest, didn't know he was still alive, but he'll be a few blocks away from my house at the Beacon the next couple of nights and now he's singing while he rocks the shades. Even though he's indoors in a TV studio. Is he singing any words? Is he drunk? What am I missing here?

1:35- Well whatever that was supposed to be went way over my head.

Final thoughts: Fallon wasn't terrible, but he definitely wasn't good. Considering they had a few months to work on the 1st show the results were disappointing. Lick it for 10? That's the best they could come up with? Timberlake was the one bright spot. But it was only Fallon's first show, and it took Conan awhile to find his groove, so we'll give him a chance.