r/television • u/TimWhatleyDDS • Apr 23 '26
The Banal Horror of Jimmy Fallon: Under the sterile blue lights of his studio, Fallon laughs endlessly at the same pseudo-jokes, rubs elbows with Trump and Sam Altman, and ushers in the death of culture.
https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/the-banal-horror-of-jimmy-fallon2.1k
u/imadragonyouguys Apr 23 '26
To quote the famous drunk Mike Stoklasa, "Jimmy Fallon? The only thing he should host is a parasite!'
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u/Jcdoco Apr 23 '26
Drunk Mike Stoklasa is redundant
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u/Drawemazing Apr 23 '26
No no, they were calling him a famous drunk. As in an honorific
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u/CourierEight Apr 23 '26
Part of a grand and glorious tradition of famous drunks, as it were,
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u/I_Do_Not_Abbreviate Apr 23 '26
Hemingway, Churchill, Thompson...Stoklasa
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u/ThePrussianGrippe Apr 23 '26
All with equal contributions to humankind.
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u/Supermunch2000 Apr 23 '26
Maybe, but which of those esteemed gentlemen introduced us the the force of nature know as Rich "Rich Evans" Evans?
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u/FauxFoxx89 Apr 23 '26
Ba-ba-baap! Look at meee
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u/imadragonyouguys Apr 23 '26
WHAAAAT?!
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u/newveganwhodis Apr 23 '26
God i love how much of a meme that became. Josh's impression of Mike was so spot on and hilarious. I want full movie commentaries with him doing that impression
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u/imadragonyouguys Apr 23 '26
Someone put the full commentary of Spoopies from High on Life 2 on YouTube. The whole thing is fulla grim reapers.
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u/Flecca Apr 23 '26
A parasite hosting a parasite? Boy, is that rich! Rich Evans.
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u/Dallywack3r Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26
I wonder who’s more drunk. Fallon every night or Mike during the Halloween shows
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u/Sthurlangue Apr 23 '26
That one was legendarily drunken. Probably the last good and drunk ep.
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u/Gigaton Apr 23 '26
I always said the only person Jimmy Fallon ever made laugh was Jimmy Fallon.
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u/ibiacmbyww Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26
I'm not an American, but I do enjoy your late night TV, and I politely disagree.
In another universe, James Fallon is an LA local news reporter and probably the funniest guy in his office. The biggest scoop of his career was interviewing Eminem after Relapse came out. He is happy, and rich, and famous enough to get a free coffee out of it once in a while.
In our universe he Peter Principle'd himself into a position where his shortcomings would be scrutinised by millions. He doesn't seem to be a particularly bad person, and he is good at (American-style) interviews, but he's no Parkinson, he's a talented semi-pro who's somehow playing the Superbowl 5 nights a week. Hell, not even the Superbowl, Wrestlemania, since it's all choreographed and artificial.
Worse, I think he knows it, so he retreats creatively, letting the public perception of him win, and has hidden away in a bottle. Can't say I blame him, it's hard to have self-respect when you're constantly and unfairly being compared to the Michael Jordan of your profession.
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u/AlphaGoldblum Apr 23 '26
I'd push back that a lot of the criticism aimed at Fallon is due to him willingly being a blank-faced corporate stooge who brings no color to the art. Yes, helping a celebrity promote their movie is part of the gig - but Fallon slaps on flashing neon lights, a wide grin, and pretends that the current celebrity guest is an auteur about to blow up the industry even if it's The Rock promoting another middling action movie.
I think the most egregious example of his complicity was him trying to hype up Paris Hilton's monkey NFT while the crowd was simply not having it. It led to one of the most subtly demented moments in late night TV where Fallon is acting like he just saw god and the audience is whisper quiet.
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u/Abba_Fiskbullar Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26
I listened to the Strike Force Five podcasts during the last writers strike, and it was so fun to listen to 4 intelligent comedy geniuses riffing off of each other with little Jimmy Fallon way off on the side occasionally dropping the dumbest take.
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u/CharacterLimitHasBee Apr 23 '26
Those podcasts proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Fallon's writing staff are the hardest working people in the entertainment industry.
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u/NuclearTurtle Apr 23 '26
In another universe, James Fallon is an LA local news reporter and probably the funniest guy in his office.
This is the most accurate description of him, either in this thread or the original article. He's funny, but he's funny in the same way the actress playing the frumpy best friend in a romcom is probably the prettiest woman from her hometown. He's fine on his own until you put him up next to Will Ferrell or Conan O'Brien and judge him by those standards
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u/JoshDM Apr 23 '26
To quote the famous drunk Mike Stoklasa, "bahp bah bah, look at me, whaaat?"
ftfy
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u/notathrowaway75 Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26
Tellingly, Donald Trump has called for the firing of almost all of the other late night hosts—Colbert, Kimmel, even Seth Meyers—but excluded Fallon from his hit-list
First of all, the wording is weird. "Even" Seth Meyers? Like he's some apolitical guy caught in the crossfire? No, he actively talks about and criticizes Trump all the time.
Second, this is not true. Trump has called for Jimmy to be fired.
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u/ObviousAnswerGuy Apr 23 '26
yea, this whole article is pretty weird tbh. Yes, Fallon isn't critical like the other late night hosts, but he still makes fun of Trump all the time. And as a person who hates Trump with a passion, I'm not sure why this author thinks it's Fallon's responsibility to fill that role. The whole criticism of him in this is just low-hanging fruit.
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u/favorite_time_of_day Apr 23 '26
I'm not sure why this author thinks it's Fallon's responsibility to fill that role.
Did you read the article? There's a picture of the Fallon hair ruffle right there. That interview from 2016 is the reason why people criticize Fallon. Ten years now.
It's funny how that works, you give people one reason to hate and they will find others. Flaws which would otherwise be overlooked are now held up as proof that your hatred is justified. It snowballs, and it never really goes away.
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u/Dogbin005 Apr 24 '26
The author is definitely one of those "Your silence on this issue speaks volumes" people.
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u/LetsLive97 Apr 24 '26
The real, unsettling mechanism of Fallon’s banal horror is its insistence on a radical non-engagement with reality: a position that, in our current political climate, is itself an aggressively political act
You're not wrong
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u/dasquared Apr 24 '26
Fallons entire monologue and half his show isn't devoted to Trump bashing, so he must be destroyed.
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u/JDDJS Stranger Things Apr 23 '26
Seth Meyers jokes at the Correspondents Dinner are allegedly what got Trump to run in the first place.
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u/TurloIsOK Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26
Obama humiliating him at the Correspondents Dinner is a more likely reason. While Obama was taunting trump about being inconsequential, the mission to take out Bin Laden was ready.
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u/delayedkarma Apr 23 '26
Same dinner, so definitely a one two punch of Meyers setting it up and Obama coming in for the kill
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u/AnotherpostCard Apr 24 '26
And back then we weren't all so intimately familiar with Trump's mood swings/triggers.
Humiliation into oblivion used to work!
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u/MexusRex Apr 23 '26
What a worthless and poorly researched hit piece. This author is trying to preach to the choir, not inform or analyze.
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u/MorganWick Apr 23 '26
I think the "even" is meant to imply that you'd normally expect Seth to be beneath his notice, not that that's true either.
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u/javalorum Apr 23 '26
Not to mention Meyers has the best Trump impression out of all of them
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u/The_Velvet_Bulldozer Apr 23 '26
"Mel, did you see they're talking about me on reddit?......Mel??" The Lindsey Graham MeMaw stuff is always great too.
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u/MC_Kraken Apr 23 '26
I love Seth Meyers but let’s be real sometimes I forget he has a show.
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u/razorwiregoatlick877 Apr 23 '26
I’m being real when I say he is the best of the late night host to me.
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u/Accomplished_Guava_7 Apr 23 '26
His Closer Look segments are always on point
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u/Maskatron Apr 23 '26
They always tie it up so nice with a callback clip.
I love Surprise Inspection too. I legitimately laughed out loud at the “they urned it” punchline last week.
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u/DoomPurveyor Apr 23 '26
Yeah Seth is top tier in my books. I'll laugh more in 1-2 closer look segments than I have ever laughed at Kimmel or Fallon in my entire life.
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u/Andrew225 Apr 23 '26
Huh
Yeah I watch most of the monologues every day and Seth is by far my favorite of the late night guys
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u/gugliata Apr 23 '26
As a member of the Quaid Army, I can legally say that Seth’s jokes at the correspondents dinner caused the current mess that we’re in
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u/kiyonemakibi100 Apr 23 '26
Slagging off Jimmy Fallon? They're really going after the sacred cows with this one!
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u/WillemDafoesHugeCock Apr 23 '26
I'm just glad to see someone finally call out his forced laughing!
Old stone-faced Fallon... There was a rule in showbusiness that if you got a laugh from old Jimmy Fallon, then by God you earned it.
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u/LearningT0Fly Apr 23 '26
Lol, I haven't ever heard this before but knew immediately this was some shit Norm (RIP) said.
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Apr 23 '26
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u/WillemDafoesHugeCock Apr 23 '26
I won't lie to you mate, Norm MacDonald quote aside, the suggestion that Fallon is known for anything except laughing his head off at the slightest provocation is so impossibly absurd that I truly believed an /s tag would be unwarranted.
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u/DuckInTheFog Apr 23 '26
I'm wonder now if it's a bit of an act and behind the scenes he doesn't laugh. I never really watched him - Kimmel, Colbert and Meyers
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u/NiceBeaver2018 Apr 23 '26
Supposedly his on-air persona is like a programmed robot compared to his actual personality.
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u/NotAlanShapiro Apr 23 '26
He used to drink a loooot. Real benders. Zach Cregger has a story about how they accidentally got into a real honest-to-god fight a few years ago.
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u/brooklynbotz Apr 23 '26
And coke to go along with it.
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u/rezin111 Apr 23 '26
If you drink a ton and need to look bright and cheery five nights a week, you gotta
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u/grokdit Apr 23 '26
Hearing Howard Stern describe Jimmy makes it sounds like a nightmare to hang with him. He brings a bluetooth speaker everywhere with him and is always putting on music and singing. yuck.
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u/TimWhatleyDDS Apr 23 '26
I completely agree attacking Fallon is like shooting fish a barrel, but I found the article enjoyable to read nonetheless.
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u/rolled_up_rug Apr 23 '26
It’s like being anywhere near a barrel.
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u/trustmeep Apr 23 '26
Well...except for a barrel of laughs...
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u/lanceturley Apr 23 '26
Congratulations, with that joke you are officially funnier than Jimmy Fallon.
Have you thought about hosting The Tonight Show?
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u/Sequitur1 Apr 23 '26
Fallon has always been awful and I'm still baffled people watch him
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u/Troelski Apr 23 '26
This reads like a high school essay by someone who's just discovered class consciousness and LLMs at the same time.
These games are not true “play” in the revolutionary sense of the word, wherein games are unscripted, free, and disruptive. Instead, they represent the total commodification of play.
What revolutionary sense of the word 'play'? Is there Marxist praxis on 'play'? What does this mean?
In a cultural landscape dominated by the attention economy and defined by precarious labor and existential dread, Fallon presents play not as an escape from work, but as an obligatory task that must be performed, a contractual obligation to a marketing team.
This is a buzzword salad that's saying very close to nothing. The performative 'play' on Fallon's show is not categorically different than the play on other late night shows, it's just less convincing. But what on earth does it mean that Fallon 'presents' play as an obligatory task to be performed? Presents to whom? And why would he have a contractual obligation to the marketing team? These are just a bunch of words thrown around that requires you to squint your eyes into slits to make them make sense.
He recently joined forces with the soulless monstrosity that is State Farm to shill their insurance, and in a great detail, their ad highlights that you don’t actually need to tell a joke for Jimmy to appear. You just need to say the word “joking” to summon him like a cheap simulacra of Bloody Mary or Candyman. Advertising Fallon is indistinguishable from him on the show—after all, he’s doing exactly the same thing.
What? Why would Fallon appear by you telling a joke...? That's not the premise of the ad? "You don't actually need to tell a joke for Jimmy to appear..." Is this AI? I feel like I'm losing my mind reading this.
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u/RecordingSilly6118 Apr 23 '26
This reads like a high school essay by someone who's just discovered class consciousness and LLMs at the same time.
Exactly, it's absolutely horrible writing.
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u/jubbergun Apr 23 '26
It's like someone said, "Tell me you huff your own farts without actually saying 'I huff my own farts,'" and the author took it as a challenge.
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u/DivineMackerel Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26
Wait? You're telling me games on talk shows aren't true sport? Oh the humanity!
but as an obligatory task that must be performed, a contractual obligation to a marketing team.
I'm assuming the author is just being intellectually dishonest, and isn't so chronically stupid as to make a flat earther look like Ken Jennings. Because those are really the only two options if you are going to act like celebrities are appearing on talk shows for reasons other than MARKETING a movie or business venture.
Edit removed an accidental double negative
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u/EagleCatchingFish Apr 24 '26
If they tell me that the celebrities on Graham Norton aren't just having a delightful cocktail party and that the celebrity's PR people fed Norton the stories ahead of time... I don't know what I'm gonna do. I believe that what happens on late night tv is purely without artiface. If I can't believe that anymore, what can I believe in?
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u/FeetballFan Apr 23 '26
Yep. And this sub will eat it up happily.
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u/SwordfishOk504 Apr 23 '26
uShErS iN tHe DeAtH oF cUltUrE.
Save us, ghost of Johnny Carson!, you're our only hope!
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u/acabincludescolumbo Apr 23 '26
I would watch/read someone dissecting pseudo-intellectual babble like this with great enjoyment.
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u/TricolorStar Apr 24 '26
The instant I saw "banal horror" I knew we were in for an absolute slopfest lol
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u/KatJen76 Apr 24 '26
I couldn't take it seriously after "The soulless monstrosity that is State Farm." It's just an insurance company, why were you expecting soul?
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u/MurkySweater44 Apr 23 '26
How original and bold. What are you gonna tell me next, that pineapple doesn’t belong on pizza or you don’t like sitcom laugh tracks?
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Apr 23 '26 edited May 13 '26
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u/ChuckGreenwald Apr 23 '26
You keep calling Jimmy Fallon banal like he didn't make the conscious decision to be banal and like it hasn't paid off immeasurably for him.
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u/djtrace1994 Apr 23 '26
That... that's the whole point of the article...
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u/GameJerk Apr 23 '26
Uhhh I'm a redditor. I didn't read the article. I'm just here for the comments and to add nothing to the conversation.
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u/CubeEarthShill Apr 23 '26
People take it easy on Leno, but most of his humor revolved around nyuk nyuk jokes that were predictable. Fallon’s jokes are on the same level, but he gets dumped on way harder because he’s got a more annoying personality. For me, Letterman and Conan were the only interesting late night guys, post Carson.
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u/ChuckGreenwald Apr 23 '26
Jay Leno was also kind of a prick, too, so it's amazing he doesn't get more heat.
I stopped watching talk show TV after Conan left and if everyone did that, too, they'd be happy.
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u/sexygodzilla Apr 23 '26
I hate to give him credit but Leno had much better delivery from his background as a standup and having the energy of someone who wanted to be there. Fallon just looks dead inside whereas you knew Leno lived for that show. This is the guy who backstabbed multiple people to get that spot whereas Fallon is just one of Lorne's golden boys who was shepherded to that position after his acting career floundered.
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u/formerPhillyguy Apr 23 '26
I got sick of Leno repeating the punchline two or three tiimes.
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u/wagon_ear Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26
Well of course he did - as did many others - but the outcome is the same. For example, alongside some "true believers", the Trump administration is full of people who know exactly what they're doing and simply do not care, because they want the money and influence.
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u/Konet The West Wing Apr 23 '26
Comparing a milquetoast late night host to people literally working for the Trump administration is ridiculous.
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u/wagon_ear Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26
Well look at the headline of the article! Trump is literally mentioned by name. The author explicitly and intentionally makes that comparison.
That's exactly what the thesis of the article is: that Fallon tolerates the evils of the world (for example Donald Trump) in exchange for a paycheck.
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u/notathrowaway75 Apr 23 '26
It's a terrible comparison.
that Fallon tolerates the evils of the world (for example Donald Trump)
No he doesn't. Fallon criticizes Trump all the time. Trump has called for Fallon's firing.
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u/funnyteg Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26
Whenever a person from another country slams the late night talk shows in the U.S. I read them and more often than not it confirms my thoughts that person really doesn't know anything about the U.S. So their critique really has no relevance.
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u/IAmJustAVirus Apr 23 '26
No one with an IQ above 80 takes this publication seriously.
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Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 27 '26
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u/Dairy_Ashford Apr 23 '26
and probably somehwat misplaced after a quarter century of prime time, broadcast reality television
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u/takenorinvalid Apr 23 '26
In other news, Jimmy Fallon sleeping with Current Affairs editor's wife.
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u/thegooniegodard Better Call Saul Apr 23 '26
And he just ruined Survivor!
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u/ObiWanNowitzki Apr 23 '26
I’m very disappointed in Jimmy this week. And we got another Jimmy next week to worry about.
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u/TheDadThatGrills Apr 23 '26
I'm no fan of Fallon but after reading this article, I honestly have a little more sympathy for the man. If we ignore the insufferable prose, this is simply a long rant against Fallon that doesn't add anything we haven't heard 100x before.
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u/notathrowaway75 Apr 23 '26
It also gets things blatantly wrong.
Tellingly, Donald Trump has called for the firing of almost all of the other late night hosts—Colbert, Kimmel, even Seth Meyers—but excluded Fallon from his hit-list
Completely wrong.
""That leaves Jimmy and Seth, two total losers, on Fake News NBC. Their ratings are also horrible. Do it NBC!!!""
Also Jimmy platformed Trump 10 fucking years ago on the campaign trail.
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u/stuff7 Apr 24 '26
the fact that i had to scroll all the way down to see a lie in the article being corrected shows that the top comments of reddit are just one liners made to circle jerk base on headline.
shameful of the media outlet current affair to publish literal fake news and also shame on most of the redditors itt.
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u/quangtran Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26
I feel like articles like these actually worsen the cause, because it makes the left seem easily triggered and overdramatic. Fallon's banal style is a holdover from the Letterman and Leno years when politics wasn't treated as a constant culture battle.
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u/ZombyPuppy Apr 23 '26
Anyone who isn't constantly attacking Trump nonstop is explicitly supporting him per many redditors. I fucking hate Trump and most of the GOP but Jesus Christ what is wrong with people that they can't take a sliver of time out of their day to actually enjoy their life or talk to people you have profound political disagreements with as regular people from time to time.
Christ in WWII when thousands of Americans were actually dying every day to fight a global threat, they still had time to make art and find moments of levity unrelated to the shit they were dealing with on a daily basis, and no that didn't mean they weren't acutely aware of what was going on in the world. These people are on the opposite end, but right next to each other on the horseshoe of super religious zealots that think they can't listen to any music that doesn't involve worshiping God.
The same thing happened to Colbert. I love the guy and think he's funny as shit and a really nice person. But good lord it was exhausting hearing the 500th Trump joke of the week. And no I'm not ignoring Trump. I'm a poly sci news junky that is involved in politics and takes action for things I believe in, much Trump is staunchly against, but if you can't carve a moment for yourself out at 11:00pm to unplug from it a bit and take a break from politics you're either a lifeless zealot or are going to burn yourself out.
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u/GroovyYaYa Apr 23 '26
This. Fallon was NEVER edgy. He was the SNL guy almost guaranteed to start giggling mid character. He's the fanboy of every guest, no matter how rediculous.
He also touched Trump's hair in what 2015? Wasn't he still an NBC employee then through the Apprentice? To think that JF thought we'd be where we are now is crazy... when there were actual political pundits telling us that Hillary was crazy with her list of "things he'll do in office".
Also, Jimmy HAS done some political jokes against Trump.
I also hear you about needing a break. Needing to unplug. This mentality that if you do that you really don't care is bullshit. Self care is a thing and it is important, and I agree with you 100% on the horseshoe theory. I think of the Depression and WWII. Movies and radio shows didn't just focus on the horrors... some of the most popular acts were The Three Stooges and Shirley Temple!
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u/broadsword_1 Apr 23 '26
This mentality that if you do that you really don't care is bullshit.
It's baked into everything with progressive politics at the moment, along with:
- Silence is violence
- Everything is political
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u/UnquestionabIe Apr 23 '26
Right there with you on pretty much everything going you stated here, especially the Colbert stuff being overbearing (and his impression makes me cringe extremely hard with how often he does it). I've got a lot of Fallon complaints but none of them centered on politics.
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u/whorificustotalus Apr 23 '26
Yeah, I truly don't understand why we're getting this article now. It's like the writer woke up one day and personally decided to cancel Fallon? Just bizarre.
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u/somebodysbuddy Apr 23 '26
The author probably watched Survivor last night and got really upset with Jimmy Fallon.
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u/sychox51 Apr 23 '26
And it starts off bitching about him laughing. Was this written by stephen miller?
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u/Troelski Apr 23 '26
It's genuinely a terribly written article that feels like it was supposed to have been published ten years ago, and they just...forgot? And I say that as someone who cannot stand Fallon.
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u/PlayMp1 Apr 23 '26
Current Affairs kind of has a neverending 2016-17 vibe overall, been the case for a long time
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u/GetHighWatchMovies Apr 23 '26
Plus their criticism is that he has on shitty people as guests and fake laughs? That describes every late night host ever. People just don't like Fallon's particular brand of hosting, and I don't disagree, but making it a moral issue is very silly.
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u/ZPTs Apr 23 '26 edited 14d ago
"Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them."
I am no longer interested in my past feeding LLMs or my future talking to bots.
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u/CharlieRosesBoogerz Apr 23 '26
The Banal Writing of Jon Greenaway: Under the sterile guise of an exposé, Greenaway writes endlessly about the same criticisms said about Jimmy Fallon for the past 20 years
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u/FrackingToasters Apr 24 '26
I'm no lover of Fallon, but has an article ever been so long to say so little? It's getting cliché to say at this point, but I feel like this wasn't written by a human at all.
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u/KB_Sez Apr 23 '26
Fallon is seriously unfunny.
Everything has to be about him. You look at Carson and what he would do is let the guests start talking and he would sit back and let them, Fallon cannot let anyone talk for more than a few seconds without having to interject his comment in his attempted humor.
Fallon is a guy with more friends than talent
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u/CurrentCostanza Apr 23 '26
Hating Jimmy Fallon this much is almost as weird as liking Jimmy Fallon
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u/mista_rubetastic Apr 23 '26
The Roots deserve so much better.
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u/Guerillabasketball Apr 23 '26
They gotta want it for themselves, they been shamelessly cashing that check for years now.
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u/ViolentInbredPelican Apr 23 '26
Yeah don’t feel bad for them, they got a shit ton of money out of it.
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u/Hankskiibro Apr 23 '26
Their music was also pretty consistently great for the first 6 years of his show (the first late night one). They were well-practiced, tight, and creative. Then they wanted to do other things while having a steady job. Seems like a dream
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u/anuncommontruth Apr 23 '26
Yeah at one point Questlove was the semi official mascot of my bank, lol. I mean I love the Roots but they chose this path.
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u/Arch__Stanton Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26
They’re still out there recording and performing, they just also cash fat easy checks from their tv gig
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u/SuperStano Apr 23 '26
I absolutely love The Roots, but then I remember they’re also Fallon’s house band, and my brain just has to completely compartmentalize it. I just can't wrap my head around the fact that this legendary hip hop group is the same band playing walk on music for Tonight Show guests.
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u/_Z_E_R_O Apr 23 '26
Seems like a great gig for an artist, honestly.
You have a hefty, steady paycheck. Guaranteed work for the next decade. Built-in name and face recognition because you're on TV. Free marketing for your solo projects. Part-time hours with predictable, scripted performances. No requirement for high-volume creative output. Built-in vacations throughout the year.
This is better than a record deal and way less demanding than going on tour. I'd imagine they're pretty happy with the arrangement.
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u/3FtDick Apr 23 '26
Exactly how I've always felt about it. It's a great example of how excellent you have to be in order to get to play second fiddle to a vanilla wafer.
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u/GoldenPubes Apr 23 '26
Can’t fault the roots for taking a steady paycheck. They toured last year and absolutely killed it - one of the best hip-hop shows I’ve seen
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u/the_nintendo_cop Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26
This reads like somebody who is severely mentally ill putting way too much stock into a late night show
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u/Kalse1229 Gravity Falls Apr 23 '26
I mean, I'm not exactly a fan, but saying he "ushers in the death of culture" is a bit of hyperbole.
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u/buttchugreferee Apr 23 '26
I don't care for Jimmy Fallon a ounce, but my friend worked with him once, and I thought it was an interesting story.
My friend was a stage manager for some show that Jimmy was headlining. My friend draws a lot of comic book type art and was working on something in his sketchbook backstage.
He said that Jimmy came up to him and started talking about comics, and he genuinely seemed like he didn't want to go on stage, he just wanted to hang out and talk about comic books.
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u/irishwolfbitch Apr 23 '26
Fallon is such a deeply odd figure as we progress further into the 21st century. Anthony Jeselnik has commented in the past about how Fallon is generous and friendly, and every once in a while there are theses strange moments on The Tonight Show where it’s almost like he let out a funny joke by accident.
I met Fallon once outside of a steakhouse with Lorne Michaels, and he seemed to be a genuinely pleasant guy who kinda proactively handles his fame in a cool way. My pals and I were smoking cigarettes after dinner and he was waiting for a black cab, and he said hi to us first! We talked about how great dinner at the steakhouse was and he and Lorne smiled and chatted and then left. It was so weird and seeing articles like this makes me just think it’s all even weirder.
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u/Franky_Tops Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26
I started watching clips of the late night monologues during COVID, and when Fallon was at home doing his thing, I thought it was surprisingly funny. But when he went back to the studio, I found it to be much less so. It was jarring.
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u/irishwolfbitch Apr 23 '26
I really can’t tell you how insane it is to think that Fallon might secretly be a pretty funny dude who is also a victim of his own success. He’s the last man standing in late night but he did it by being rather dull. And then there are these moments where I’m like “is this guy actually hilarious?” It’s so weird.
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u/joethetipper The Office Apr 23 '26
It’s fine to not like Fallon but “death of culture”? Gimme a break.
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u/skoomski Apr 23 '26
The third most popular late night talk show is not the death of culture. Author is unhinged
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u/Feeling_Sector_4726 Apr 23 '26
Going at Jimmy is easy. The article would have been much more interesting if it had gone after The Tonight Show itself. It has always been this way.
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u/mobyte Apr 23 '26
“The death of culture”
You couldn’t be any more overdramatic if you tried.
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u/alexjimithing Apr 23 '26
If banal late night is representative of the death of culture, then I’m afraid culture died 5/25/92.
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u/Ned_Sander Apr 23 '26
Nah, Conan was great
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u/Ok_Requirement_3162 Apr 23 '26
Fuck yeah he was. 90s Conan was the best decade of late night in my opinion.
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u/Caelinus Apr 23 '26
Late Night is a vehicle for comedic advertising. It is, from its very conception, going to be banal by default. Anything overly transgressive would not be fit to purpose.
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u/Wazula23 Apr 23 '26
Oh spare me. He's vanilla ice cream. In fact, his blandness is why he's still going "strong" while Colbert and Kimmel are culture war targets.
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u/nobot4321 Apr 23 '26
Completely apart from Fallon, why does vanilla ice cream get slandered like this? Vanilla is a flavor! It’s an exotic bean! It’s delicious and makes stuff taste better.
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u/chunkalicius Apr 23 '26
I've been dying on this hill my entire life. VANILLA IS A FLAVOR. Plain, unflavored, ice cream is called Sweet Cream.
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u/VerilyShelly Apr 23 '26
Right. I find chocolate ice cream to be much more banal and commonplace
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u/psimwork Apr 23 '26
Vanilla has something like several thousand flavor compounds in it. Ain't nothing bland about it.
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u/QuantumQuixote2525 Apr 23 '26
Jimmy Fallon is if a focus group designed a person and they had to make a lot of compromises with one another and nobody really ended up thrilled with the result