Category Archives: Social Skills

Observations from The Debut of The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon

Comedy, Thoughts On Life

I just finished watching Jimmy Fallon’s debut episode (link at bottom), and a lot of thoughts came to mind.

First off, the moment Jimmy Fallon came out, I could instantly see the bags under his eyes; and from experience, I knew it meant he’d been working non-stop with little rest. Obviously. The Tonight Show is a big deal.  It has for decades been, the winner by viewership of late night television.  It is important for the reputation of The Tonight Show, and for the success of Jimmy and NBC’s careers, for him to do well.  But winning isn’t easy.  We saw how difficult late night TV is to win when Conan O’Brien was ousted because he couldn’t keep the ratings: Jimmy knows that this is no joke.

As if that wasn’t enough, late night television is a big deal.  It is an institution that many Americans depend on to get through the day, by giving them something to look forward to at the end of the day, a reliable way to end the day on a happier note.  Late night television doesn’t just serve the viewer, however, it also serves the entertainment industry: countless careers are launched and made on late night television, and it is a critical part of any large scale advertising campaign.  Without ratings, the return on investment won’t be good enough to justify the time spent by the stars to promote their movies, or musicians their music, or artists their art, so they won’t show up.  And if they don’t show up, then we all miss out on the unique opportunity that the Late Night Talk Show medium allows: a conversational setting for celebrities, artists, and public figures to humanize themselves in a more relaxed environment than the high energy, dramatized advertisements or sensationalized red carpet interviews we normally see them in. 

 

What he said after he came out, completely surprised me.  Jimmy Fallon opened with a very genuine and sincere toned introduction about himself, his background, family, the band The Roots, his side-kick Steve Higgins, and addressed the seriousness of the whole situation directly.  This was an extremely good move.  It shows maturity, composure, and creates rapport with us the viewer.  It also shows insecurity: Jimmy recognizes that if he doesn’t do well, he may lose his job.  As he put it, “I’m your host of The Tonight Show…for now.”  Compare this with Conan O’Brien’s Open

which centered around the self deprecating humor of him forgetting to move to LA from NY.  Self deprecating humor is, at its heart, a way of building confidence. If you are nervous and unsure of yourself, you will use self deprecating humor to deflect attention and give yourself the confidence to be present.  It’s also a mark of strength: it takes confidence to say bad things about yourself, just like it takes confidence to be able to take insults, which is basically what self deprecating humor is: insulting yourself to prove both to yourself and your audience, that you are better than the image you portray.  By opening with confidence, Conan O’Brien is a lot like the opening of Spiderman 3, which opened with the often criticized line “It’s me, Peter Parker. Your friendly neighborhood–you know.”  It assumes that the audience knows who you are, and respects you enough to allow you to be self deprecating–as I’ve learned from trying to build friendships and relationships this way, it doesn’t work.  Jimmy Fallon learned from this mistake, good for him.

The next part of the show, his Monologue, Late Night Superlatives Sketch, and Hip Hop Dance Video with Will Smith, was a showcase of the unique talents that he brings: impressions (voice) and dance.  All were executed very well, which impressed me because juggling all those details, managing and choreographing each of those comedy projects must have been very difficult.  I thought he did a good job and was impressed–and it made me realize just how hard his job must be.  Just last week, hulu had made available Jimmy Fallon’s first ever comedic attempt:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/51240

and I remember thinking, wow.  That’s the start of his career.  Skinny, nervous, rushing off the stage immediately after completing his set.  Compare and contrast that with now, he’s gained muscle mass, in a suit, and his excitement and giddiness is very much controlled and intentional.  I then looked up his age, and found that he is now 39 years old.  Twenty-two years it took him to build up his career.

A lot of times we look at someone’s success, and want to emulate it, but we never really realize or appreciate just how long it takes to get there.  22 years.  All the more reason to make sure what you’re doing is what you really want, because you’ll be doing it a long time.  If success is what you want, and it’s going to take a long time regardless of whether it’s something you like or not, you might as well make it out of something you like.

At the end of the show I wasn’t entirely sure what to think, how to articulate what I was feeling, so I took a look at some Facebook trending statuses and links and I came up with Mark Evanier‘s article that said the lack of ad-libbing and spontaneity detracts from the essence of late night television, which is supposed to be imperfect and therefore more relaxed and entertaining.  And I found the words to describe my feelings about this show.

The Job Security of being a Tonight Show Host used to create a relaxed environment for genuine, sincere comedy, which is the most appreciated comedy of all.  A laugh at the expense of a fake character is nice, but a laugh at the expense of someone’s honest character has a richness that can’t be emulated.  Since the oust of Conan and that whole debacle, there is a lot of attention and pressure directed towards Fallon.  As a result, he was too safe with his first show, too planned, too cautious.  Most of the show was spent sending the message: Jimmy will do a good job, he deserves it, he’s great, everyone love Jimmy.  There was a clear a lack of authenticity: he over did his “this is great” reaction, making it too obvious to us viewers that it was scripted, as was the approval and praise of all his guests.

Compare this with Leno’s first guest interview with Billy Crystal: an unscripted event with authentic and honest reactions.

Not only did it have authentic and honest reactions, but it had authentic and honest friendships: you could tell that Leno and Billy were and are friends in real life.  I did not get that impression from Will Smith and U2: they were obviously just the biggest name stars they could find to open the show with, and there’s only so much you can do with star power.  You can attract initial interest with it, but then you have to deliver substance, and substance comes from authenticity.

Themes within Fallon’s opening and show are an emphasis on family (he had several back and forths between his parents as he introduced them to us) and on having a good heart and having good friendships.  Both of these are clearly borrowed from Jay Leno, for whom those are his signature traits.  This further serves to make Jimmy a stranger to us.  The only real moment we had with him was at the start of the show–for the rest of the show, it is all too clear that he is playing a character.

Jimmy, you’re not on SNL any more.  The Tonight Show Host is a person, not a variety of characters.  Show us your real self, that’s the way to go.  Or, perhaps, you can make it work, in which case, good luck.

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Conversation Skill – Rich vs Poor

Conversation, Rich vs. Poor Series, Thoughts On Life

Conversation skill is like any other skill (What is Skill, Talent, Potential, Smart, Intelligence?), it improves with practice and good instruction.

Habit: When someone talks to you, do you always answer, or do you normally not answer.

Rich parents are more likely to have the time, energy, interest, and care to talk to their children, therefore developing the child’s conversation skills and training the child to talk back.  This is a mark of good manners that Rich parents teach: “speak when spoken to” because ignoring someone is rude.  Teaching a child to talk back in turn teaches both independent thinking and independent opinion making, as well as clear and open communication, which is the foundation for all good relationships.

Poor parents are more likely to work minimum wage jobs and never be home, or when they are home, to be too exhausted or uninterested in their children to have conversations with them.  Furthermore, the cultural expectation is different: children in poor families are more often expected to shut up and not talk back, because talking back is considered disrespectful.  This is because the parents probably don’t get enough respect in the real world for being poor or working low skilled jobs, so they demand it from their children: they demand silent obedience, exactly what the world demands of the poor parents.  As a result, the children learn not to talk back, not to have clear communication, not to have good manners, and not to develop independent thinking and opinions.

Check out more Conversation Resources or Rich vs Poor Series

Language Gap – NYTimes; Children from low income homes have a 30 million word gap by the time they enter kindergarden.

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Keeping Conversations Light, Fun, Interesting

Conversation

Follow the 3 Ss: Be Stupid, Spontaneous, and Sporadic. Wherever your brain takes you, filter it for appropriateness: if it’s appropriate, say it regardless of how weird or strange it is (again, we assume it’s appropriate), because it will make the scene more interesting.

Stupidity is necessary because logic is boring: who wants to be told things they already know, and have things explained that they could explain themselves?  When you’ve run out of new material to explore, create new material out of what you already know: be stupid.  This way, you find new things to talk about, and new things the other people don’t already know and haven’t already thought about, are interesting.

Spontaneous is needed because a natural progression of the conversation is much more welcome than a forced progression, and you never know when you’ll have an inspiration for another topic.  If we’re talking about cats, and you start talking about mice, people in the conversation may want to know how you got to mice.  If you say it’s because cats typically chase mice and cats remind you about mice, then everyone understands how you reached the new topic, and they accept the change in conversation.  If instead you say you thought of mice and want to talk about it, you are saying two things: 1. I’m here to talk about what I want to talk about, and 2. I don’t respect or care for your conversation, or your approval of conversation topics: I’m just going to introduce things selfishly.  (Tip: If you do want to force a topic change, use the conversation transition “Can we talk about mice now?”  If they say yes, proceed, if they say no, you are being rude by proceeding.  Read about Conversation Transitions).

Sporadic makes the downtime interesting. If you are predictable, people will get used to your tangents and its effect on making the conversation more lively will diminish.  If no-one knows when you’re going to say something next, then there’s suspense as a result of people’s anticipation of your comments.  However,  you should not hijack the conversation and just spit out a stream of random comments because, unless you’re a skilled comedian, it will stop being entertaining.  Therefore, you should switch between being normal, and being a source of creativity for the conversation.

Another thing your comments do is create tension between what everyone was talking about, and the new outrageous thing you are talking about.  This tension sparks compare and contrast within the minds of all its participants, which can trigger inspiration within other people’s mind, therefore progressing the conversation and engaging everyone in the conversation: the mark of a good conversation.

I like to watch talk shows like David Letterman and Craig Ferguson, who are conversational geniuses (note that Ferguson has a late night audience so he will pander towards more inappropriate humor).

Other tips are to: create scenes, create EMOTION: people like stories, and stories need emotion. Create tension randomly, then dispel it equally randomly. The three Ss’ will keep your conversations interesting, and you’ll learn the proper balance of over the top creativity and normalcy with practice.

Check out more Conversation Resources

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