7 Ways Jimmy Fallon Will Make "The Tonight Show" Interesting Again

Image via Complex Original

Not to sound like a young whipper-snapper here, but do you remember a time in your life, as a young adult, that The Tonight Show was something your friends were like, "Yo, you have to check this out?" We heard our parents praise Carson, then there was a muddy middle ground, then we heard that Leno took his show back from Conan.

But we know who Jimmy is. He grew up with us. We saw him as, like, a 12-year-old on SNL that couldn't figure out his hair, witnessed his awkward teen years as he dabbled in a movie career (remember Taxi?), and then saw him enter adulthood with Late Night.

Fallon has guys like Ghostface Killah on his show. The Roots are his house band. Leno's like your uncle who sometimes lets you take a sip of beer, but then laughs because he tricked you into drinking ginger ale. Fallon is your older brother's cool friend who says it's OK for you to hang out with him and lets you borrow CDs. 

Jimmy Fallon started in stand-up, but he truly perfected his craft at Saturday Night Live, where he became the Golden Boy of Lorne Michaels and many of the writers. We've seen late-night shows run by stand-up comics, and they're good, but we can bet you $50 that Fallon's sketches are more memorable than any of those guys' monologues.

Case in point: his Pros and Cons bits are constantly made into Tumblr GIFs and Downtown Sixby is so clever that you'll find yourself wishing that it had a full season on PBS.

Each night we get to stand in Fallon's shoes as he meets his own idols. He cares about what people are working on and thrives on their wins, too. Proof of that? His interviews don't feel forced and stiff. Rather, they're a conversation between a fan and a guest.

Fallon's going to have the best guests on the show, and not just because it's The Tonight Show, but because, like, who doesn't like to be fawned over in a sincere way?

This is a hard fact. Dude looks like a perpetual Golden Retriever puppy. Fallon's just so willing to make us laugh after a full day at our crappy jobs. His sketches are bizarre (like using mannequin arms on real people) and his games bring a child-like innocence to late night TV—that includes playing beer pong with celebrities.

Really, being goofy is what The Tonight Show was always all about. Steve Allen, the first host of the show, was probably the first dude to pretend he was a banana split by sitting in a plate of ice cream. (It was a simpler time.)

Justin Timberlake gave us a modern-day Christmas carol, "Dick in a Box," and he rules Saturday Night Live every time he hosts, but when he works with Jimmy Fallon, it's something else. Something beyond special.

Justin Timberlake Week on Late Night wasn't just a success because of die-hard NSYNC fans. Watching JT and JF work together is like sitting back and watching two best friends rift. When we hear the Bee Gees, it's them we think about. It's difficult not to look forward to what they'll collaborate on next, and we can't wait to see what that'll be on The Tonight Show.

Lorne Michaels once said, "One thing I saw in [Jimmy Fallon] from 'Update' was how enormously generous he is... He never felt diminished by other people being funny. He enjoyed when people were funny."

Fallon's the type of guy who won't just say hello to everyone in a room, he actually goes to each person and has a conversation with them. It's not a fake air—he's just a nice guy. It shouldn't be such an important point that it deserves to be said, but to find real kindness in someone isn't just rare on TV, it's pretty rare in the entire city of New York. So forgive us.

When you think of "late night," you don't think of the sunny beaches of L.A. You think of dirty, grimy-ass New York, the city that never sleeps. Who knows what could happen after-hours in New York? You could run into a superstar on the train or into a stream of a homeless man's urine.

There's just something magical about New York, but it's the kind that's less like pulling a flower bouquet out of a jacket sleeve and more like making your wallet disappear. And Jimmy's bringing the magic back to his home, and the original home of the show, Rockefeller Center’s Studio 6B.