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'The Tonight Show' with Jimmy Fallon opened on Monday night.
- Title: 'Tonight Show' starring Jimmy Fallon
- Network / Air Date: NBC / Monday at midnight
A visibly nervous Jimmy Fallon made it through his first “Tonight Show” with a little help from his friends.
And a lotta help from his city.
Fallon wasn’t bad. He just wasn’t as good as he’s going to get. He also did nothing to suggest NBC made the wrong call in giving him the desk owned for the last half-century by Johnny Carson and Jay Leno.
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Lady Gaga plants a kiss on Jimmy Fallon during a brief appearance on the show.
Monday’s opening night also proved Fallon may never make a better decision than his first one: bringing the show back from L.A. to New York.
With no disrespect to Will Smith and U2, the city was his best guest Monday — and it will be back every night.
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U2 braves the cold to perform on the roof of 30 Rockefeller Center on 'The Tonight Show.'
He also gave it the best imaginable showcase, trundling U2 up to the top of Rockefeller Center for a two-song rooftop concert.
After everything nature has thrown at New York this winter, it gave Fallon a perfect window for this gambit. As the cameras slowly rotated around the roof, a clear dusk put a shimmering ripple of sunset colors behind the silhouetted Manhattan skyline. It’s a view only available here.
U2 did a solid job with the music as well, despite being bundled up in seasonally appropriate outerwear.
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Jimmy Fallon and Will Smith jam in overalls on the comedian's first 'Tonight Show.'
The whole setup unmistakably harkened back to the famous London 1969 rooftop concert that turned out to be the last-ever performance of the Beatles. It’s safe to say that historical footnote was lost on neither Fallon nor Bono.
Things back in the studio were a little less spectacular, though the new set seems fine.
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Mariah Carey pulled money for Jimmy Fallon from her ever-expanding cleavage.
For whatever reason, probably no more complex than plain old first-night jitters, Fallon didn’t bring his A-game to go with his A-list of guests.
That included a small army of amusing celebrities who made brief and mostly silent cameo appearances in an early routine. At the end of his monologue, which was flat, he declared that some unnamed friend had bet him he’d never host “Tonight” and now that friend owed him a hundred bucks.
One beat later, Robert De Niro shuffled on stage and threw a C-note on Fallon’s desk.
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Robert De Niro shuffled on stage soon after Jimmy Fallon announced a friend lost a bet to him.
Tiny Fey followed, and soon another dozen celebs paraded out from behind the curtain.
Mariah Carey pulled the money out of her ever-expanding cleavage. Sarah Jessica Parker pulled hers from her shoe.
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Tina Fey paid Jimmy Fallon a visit during the opening night of 'The Tonight Show.'
The last parader was Stephen Colbert, who brought his hundred bucks in a bucket of pennies.
He dumped them on Fallon’s desk, then Fallon’s head, then got in Fallon’s face and hissed, “Welcome to 11:30, bitch!”
If only all the first-night welcomes had been that funny.
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Mike Tyson was among the small army of celebrities that made brief and mostly silent cameo appearances in an early routine.
Fallon has become a pretty decent interviewer, but most of his time with Smith was spent swapping compliments and sharing laughter that felt more nervous than relaxed.
They also did a mimed dance bit together that lasted far longer than the joke and was probably the one time that Ma and Pa out in the Midwest looked at each other and said, “I don’t think we’re in Leno-land any more, Toto.
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