Reviews

Letterman Fan Welcomes Fallon to Greatest City

2/18/2014

Doppelganger in Studio 6b

As somebody who could not watch a second of Jay Leno, ever, I was charmed by Jimmy Fallon’s first show Monday night.

I’m a total Letterman fan, attuned to his twitchy moods, his dark history, his world view, his infatuations – Julia Roberts, Cate Blanchett. But Fallon can be an outlet during reruns, commercials, stupid pet tricks.

I love that Fallon is young (39), agile and musical. I love the brothers in the shades in his band (The Roots) and hope they get more of a chance to play whole riffs than Letterman allows Paul’s talented band to do, on air.

My one question about the Fallon show is the presence of his announcer pal Steve Higgins. As an old guy, I kept saying, “Why is Steve Allen standing there? Is he a ghost who materializes from the walls of the ancient studio?”

I also love the Spike Lee intro for Fallon – need to catch more of the references – and love the ‘30’s set, so New York, so Rockefeller Plaza. Two shows from The Greatest City in the World, as Letterman’s announcer used to call it.

Welcome to Big Town. It may be time to learn how to download TV shows.

John McDermott

2/18/2014 05:53:16 pm

I am incredibly pleased to find out there is at least one other person who could not bear to watch Jay Leno. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that it's you, George. Now, may I tell that I have even less tolerance for
David Letterman? While Leno is, to me, just not very funny and a bit too smarmy, Letterman's brand of humor is too often mean and condescending.

George Vecsey

2/19/2014 03:16:28 am

exactly
GV

John McDermott

2/19/2014 01:08:52 pm

From what I've seen of Jimmy Fallon(you've got to see his Van Morrison imitation), he seems genuinely funny, and a good guy to boot.

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Thor A. Larsen

2/19/2014 05:58:00 am

I am thrilled that Jimmy Fallon is now the host of the Tonight Show. Over the recent years, I have always enjoyed his humor, music talent and bottomless energy. However, the main reason for this blog entry is to share the joy and pride of us in Upstate NY seeing one of our locals making it BIG.
Jimmy grew up in Saugerties, NY, the town next to Woodstock NY where we lived for more than 20 years at the same time when Jimmy was growing up In Saugerties. His dad, Jim Fallon, worked at IBM Kingston when I was there. A friend was one of his teachers in Saugerties High School and guided him in several school productions of ‘Lip Sync’ variety shows. One of Jimmy’s high school buddies was married to my niece and attended, with his mother, Jimmy’s wedding. Everyone who knew Jimmy that I have spoken with on the subject, always had the highest regard for Jimmy as a person.
In net, Jimmy had a modest, small town upbringing, worked very hard, treated everyone well and that is why we, the Upstaters, are so proud of him.

George Vecsey

2/19/2014 07:06:09 am

Thor, funny, I was happy that he was born in Bay Ridge. He did seem like a very normal person on Monday -- emotional about there he was, sweet about his parents, who were in the audience. Granted, he is a performer, and knows how to do humble. But your vision of him is the real thing. You can't fool your homies.

See you soon,
GV

Alan Rubin link

2/20/2014 02:30:25 am

Thor

Thanks for the personal insight. It is refreshing to see the human side to a public personality.

My Upper West Side appliance business's customers spanned the entire economic spectrum, including well known financial. political and entertainment personalities. It was a joy to get to know their human side and relate to them as a neighbor.

Most were like Jimmy, just nice.

Ed Martin

2/19/2014 02:53:03 pm

I know how boring old guys are when they talk about how things were better in the past, and it is only true 90 percent of the time and the other 50 percent its not. Meanwhile, Steve Allen and his cast, Steve Lawrence and Edie Gorme, Andy Williams--was there ever a program with more talented musicians? The Answer Man, "The Answer is 9-W, (hint before interstates Hwy 9 ran from NY to Canada, (9-E on the east side of the Hudson, and you can figure out where 9-W was.) Steve, the Answer Man, gave you the question that elicited this answer after a brief pause. "Do you spell your name with a V, Herr Wagner?"

Alan Rubin link

2/20/2014 03:17:04 am

Ed

There were many great late night shows in the late 40's and early 50's, but Steve Allen and Ernie Kovacs are my all-time favorites.

Steve (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Steve_Allen_Show) was funny and Ernie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Kovacs#Start_in_television) was zany. They were both good natured and creative.

Steve’s show launched the careers of cast members Don Knotts, Tom Poston, Louis Nye, Pat Harrington, Jr. and Bill Dana. The show's most popular sketch was the "Man on the street" which featured Knotts as the nervous Mr. Morrison, Poston as the man who could not remember his own name, Harrington as Italian golf player Guido Panzini, Nye as the smug Gordon Hathaway, and Dana as José Jiménez. Hathaway's greeting of "Hi Ho Steverino!" became a catchphrase as did Jimenez's "My name José Jiménez." Dayton Allen also appeared in the sketch and spawned the catchphrase "Whyyyyy not?" Gabe Dell, previously a member of The Bowery Boys, was also a cast member. Gene Rayburn was the show's announcer and Skitch Henderson was the bandleader.

Gene Rayburn was part of a morning radio DJ show with Dee Finch on WNEW. (Thinking about this makes me pine for the good old days of radio).

Steve used to compose songs on the spot with words given from the audience.

Ernie was often off the wall. The following is an excerpt from his Wikipedia site. I enjoy all forms of humor, including laughing at myself, but I’m partial to the offbeat.

I first saw Ernie when I watch late night Philadelphia while ar collge in Bethlehem, PA.

At WPTZ, Kovacs began using the ad-libbed and experimental style that would become his reputation, including video effects, superimpositions, reverse polarities and scanning, and quick blackouts. He was also noted for abstraction and carefully timed non-sequitur gags and for carefully allowing the so-called fourth wall to be breached Kovacs' cameras commonly showed his viewers activity beyond the boundaries of the show set—including crew members and outside the studio itself. Kovacs also liked talking to the off-camera crew and even introduced segments from the studio control room.

Ernie frequently made use of accidents and happenstance, incorporating the unexpected into his shows. One of Kovacs' Philadelphia broadcasts was "enlivened" by a homeless man who sought shelter inside the TV studio; Kovacs invited him onto the set, where he slept for the duration of the telecast, but nonetheless was introduced on camera to the audience as "Sleeping Schwartz."

He was once knocked out when a pie in the face still had the plate under it.

Kovacs' love of spontaneity extended to his crew, who would occasionally play on-air pranks on him to see how he would react. During one of his NBC shows, Kovacs was appearing as the inept magician Matzoh Heppelwhite. The sketch called for the magician to frequently hit a gong, which was the signal for a sexy female assistant to bring out a bottle and shot glass for a quick snort of alcohol. Stagehands substituted real liquor for the iced tea normally used for the gag. The look on Ernie's face upon taking the first shot was priceless when he realized that he would be called upon to drink a shot of liquor for each successive gong. Kovacs pressed on with the sketch and was quite inebriated by the end of the show.

On another occasion, as "Percy Dovetonsils", he found that his drink contained a live fish.

Kovacs helped develop camera tricks still common almost 50 years after his death, one of which became one of his signature gags. His character Eugene sat at a table to eat his lunch, but as he removed items one at a time from a lunch box, he watched them inexplicably roll down the table into the lap of a man reading a newspaper at the other end. When Kovacs poured milk from a thermos bottle, the stream flowed in a seemingly unusual direction.

Never seen on television before, the secret was using a tilted set in front of a camera tilted at the same angle.

One of my favorites was his The Nairobi Trio, which was a skit Ernie Kovacs performed several times for his TV shows. It combined many existing concepts and visuals in a novel and creative way.

People in gorilla suits have always been a comedy staple. The notion of well-known or predictable music pieces gone awry has long been practiced by artists as diverse as Stan Freberg, Spike Jones or P. D. Q. Bach. The "slow burn" of one character being annoyed by another, resulting in eventual retaliation, was not new. But the combination of all those ingredients, combined with impeccable timing, produced a unique and memorable result.

I agree with John about Leno and Letterman and I never watch their shows.

I’ll have to give Jimmy a try as he sounds refreshing.

George Vecsey

2/20/2014 06:30:47 am

Alan, great, what about the false teeth chattering in the glass?
GV

Ed Martin

2/21/2014 05:02:36 am

Guido Panzini, the Italian golf pro, introduces his lesson on how to play golf:

"First you address the ball."
"Saludo pelota!"

George Vecsey

3/2/2014 05:58:08 am

forgot that one, too
what a body of work
GV

Alan Rubin link

2/20/2014 08:34:31 am

George--Stories about Steve and Ernie's shows would take up too much space on the internet.

Glad that you appreciated it.

Brian Savin

2/20/2014 11:37:31 am

Three memories:

Tonight show host Jack Parr: "I confess I am intimidated by stores that spell their name 'shoppe' and so won't go in."

Steve Allen, pretending to be an Italian race car driver climbing into his Cesari Siepi sports car (actually, the Met's great Don Giovani, whom I had the privilege of meeting back stage once)

Ernie Kovacs: The box he opened the lid of on Friday which sang the song: "Friday is my day for fish."

http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/DP/2007/08/238_13_Leona_Anderson_-_Fish.mp3

George Vecsey

2/21/2014 12:20:38 am

Brian, regards. Those old bits do stay in the mind.
I can still see Sid Caesar doing shtick on Saturday night...and classic Belushi or Radner on SNL decades later.
GV

Altenir Silva

2/20/2014 03:32:43 pm

Dear George,
The opening directed by Spike Lee is so beautiful like the openings of SNL. When Celia and I were in New York, we visited the NBC studios at 30 Rock. We had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Fallon working his jokes for the audience of Late Night. Great showman! After so many errors, NBC finally made his home run choosing Lorne Michaes to produce the Tonight Show. The nights of America is save!
Regards - Altenir

Altenir Silva

2/20/2014 03:45:12 pm

Errata: I meant "evenings of America are saved!"

George Vecsey

2/21/2014 12:17:34 am

Altenir, thanks. Do you get NBC on Rio televison, or via the Internet? My best to you three.
George

George Vecsey

2/21/2014 01:25:43 am

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/18/opinion/nocera-joyce-does-it-her-way.html

Altenir: while we are talking, so to speak, did you see this column about Joyce Moreno, in the NYT? I don't know her music but Nocera seems quite taken with her. I know Brazil is a huge country with so much music, but I'm curious if you know her...Ciao, GV

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Altenir Silva

2/21/2014 02:39:37 am

Dear George,

I see it in the internet. I love talk shows. I love Letterman, Leno, Kimmel, Conan and Fallon. I think every one have a specific talent. I'm curious about Seth Meyers in the Late Night.

I know Joyce Moreno. I did see a show with her at Curitiba (Brazilian South) years ago. She is a singer where mix bossa nova and MPB (Música Popular Brasileira).

Regards - Altenir

George Vecsey

2/21/2014 02:42:41 am

see, I knew you would know her.
I found one youtube this morning, will look around for more soon.
Got family in town today...

best
GV

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