Jimmy Fallon Ushers In A New Era of The Tonight Show

Jimmy Fallon Ushers In A New Era of The Tonight Show

It has been almost a year-long build up to Jimmy Fallon finally taking over hosting duties on The Tonight Show and last night he made his debut at last with a parade of celebs to help ease his transition. If you’ve followed this story then you know that Jimmy taking over for Jay Leno wasn’t the only change that NBC put into place last night. The Tonight Show also returned to good old studio 6B in the GE Building where it originally taped with Johnny Carson. After several years taping in L.A. NBC wisely decided to have all of its’ corner stone programming based out of its’ massive Rockefeller Center compound.

Jimmy started off his first show slightly humbled and as funny as ever. After settling in behind the desk he said, “To my buddy who said that I’d never be the host of ‘The Tonight Show’ – and you know who you are – you owe me a hundred bucks, buddy.” That comment began a parade of stars in rapid succession plunking down a hundred dollar bill on the desk. Robert De Niro first burst through the curtain followed by Joe Namath, Rudolph Giuliani, Lindsay Lohan, Lady Gaga, Mike Tyson, Kim Kardashian, Sarah Jessica Parker and Stephen Colbert who paid up with a big bucket of quarters. Even Joan Rivers returned to the show nearly 30 years after Johnny Carson banned her!

Jimmy had Will Smith up as his first guest and as usual Will made him work for the interview. This guy is a pro and tries to keep things as light as possible. He gives nothing away but that didn’t stop Jimmy from finding a way to angle in for more info. We already knew that U2 was booked as the first musical guest on the new Tonight Show, but we didn’t know that they’d be performing live outside from the top of the GE building’s Observation Deck 70 floors up. The view was crazy and they debuted a brand new song. All in all it was a great start to what will probably be a long run for Jimmy. Did you tune in last night? What did you think of the revamped Tonight Show? Tell us in the comments below!