Jimmy Fallon Is Now 30 Rockefeller Plaza’s Longest-Tenured Late-Night Host Ever
Conan O’Brien fans might not be ready to accept the suggestion that Jimmy Fallon may eventually end his career as a more prolific late-night host than CoCo, but facts are facts. While Conan couldn’t last more than a few months on The Tonight Show, Fallon stuck around on the iconic show long enough to break records — Conan’s records.
On February 17, 2014, Fever Pitch star, Saturday Night Live darling and Late Night host Fallon stepped up onstage at Studio 6B in 30 Rockefeller Plaza for his first show as the permanent host of The Tonight Show following the (supposedly) final retirement of Jay Leno. While more serious comedy fans were lukewarm at best toward Fallon’s lighter, looser and more childish approach to hosting late-night when compared to his more experienced contemporaries, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon engendered enough favor from nightly NBC viewers and the executives at 30 Rock to prevent another power struggle and public shit show like how NBC’s handling of Conan’s ascension to the desk (with Leno hot on his heels) disgraced the late-night world just a couple years earlier.
Between Fallon’s previous performance on Late Night and his 10-year stint on The Tonight Show, Fallon recently passed a major milestone this past month as he became the longest-tenured late-night host in the history of NBC’s flagship studio building at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, beating Conan’s combined mark of 15 years and 5 months on the same shows.
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Next, Fallon should try breaking Leno’s record for “most bizarre and unsettling automobile accidents without giving up the whole ‘car guy’ shtick.”
While Fallon’s more pop-culture-focused, segment-heavy approach to the late-night format has made him a punching bag for comedy purists who don’t want to admit that carefully crafted monologues and masterful improvisation aren’t the industry standard anymore, it’s easy to see why The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon has seen such continued success in a late-night business that’s been bleeding since the streaming explosion. Fallon’s colorful, loud, over-produced guest challenges and branded bits are simply more suited to become shareable Twitter clips than the off-the-cuff conversational brilliance of a Conan or a Letterman, and the previous emphasis that late-night hosts put on poignance and topicality no longer leads to the kind of viewership that allows for multi-decade hosting stints.
With the future of late-night comedy looking bleaker than it ever had during Conan’s time on top and Fallon showing no signs of slowing down, it’s likely that Fallon will remain 30 Rock’s most prolific all-time late-night host — unless Seth Meyers suddenly decides to secure two decades’ worth of renewals by performing nightly installments of Connect Four Karaoke with Katy Perry and the Hawk Tuah girl.
