‘The Tonight Show’ Has Become An Infomercial for Jimmy Fallon’s Halloween Side Hustles
Unfortunately, we still have fifty-freaking-five sleeps until Halloween. That means weeks and weeks of enduring Jimmy Fallon hawking his multiple holiday side hustles, turning The Tonight Show into his own smirking version of the Home Shopping Network.
Like Target playing Christmas carols right after Labor Day, Fallon started the drumbeat in mid-August for “Jimmy Fallon’s Tonightmares,” a haunted house attraction that Lorne Michaels allowed his protege to run in the bowels of 30 Rock.
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For 40 bucks a person (you read that right), you can tour a haunted maze featuring Fallon’s worst nightmares — a scary alien, a vicious werewolf and garden-variety, knife-wielding maniacs.
Forty bucks buys you 10 minutes in the haunted maze, a pretty hefty fee for an experience that lasts less time (and inflicts less terror) than a typical Fallon monologue. But why pay the big bucks when Fallon is running out a new monster every night during his show? We’re still nearly two months away from Halloween, Jimmy — with only 10 frights in store, you might want to keep a couple of ghouls hidden away until we get to October.
There doesn’t seem to be anything connecting haunted houses and The Tonight Show except for the awkward portmanteau, “Tonightmares.” Could it at least have the ghost of Steve Allen rattling a few chains? Jay Leno chasing Conan O’Brien out of the studio with a chainsaw?
If $40 is too rich for your blood, Fallon also has slightly less expensive holiday merch to hustle. When he’s not hawking “Tonightmares,” the heir to Johnny Carson has been reading us excerpts from his new children’s book, 5 More Sleeps ‘Til Halloween. Since the book’s target audience has been sleeping for hours when Fallon’s show airs, what exactly is the purpose of this segment?
Oh yeah, here’s the purpose: “It’s available right now wherever fine children’s books are sold,” Fallon pitches — not during a commercial break but on his actual late-night comedy show. “You can get it on Amazon, your local bookstore or library. Target, Barnes & Nobles — both have special editions. Or use just this QR code right here and see all the places you can get it. Also, I’ll be doing a book signing at the NBC Store on Thursday.”
Shameless. At least it will all be over at the end of next month — at which point the huckster show for Jimmy Fallon’s 5 More Sleeps ‘Til Kwanzaa kicks in.
