(image via timeinc)
We almost want to cradle Jimmy Fallon, nestle him by Our Mighty, Beating Corsair Heart (tm) and tousle his scruffy mop while saying, soothingly: It's all right, little man; (sotto voce) it's all right. He can't feel to steady after the bitchslapping he receieved in the form of Jay Leno's announcement on the day of his late, late night debut (Averted Gaze). Fallon's eyes, once bright and keen, now look haunted and hollow; his delivery, once crisp, suffused with the deathless cockiness of youth, seems tentative now, rattled, slaughtered even.
Let's face it: Hollywood has not been kind to Jimmy Fallon. He was supposed to be bigger. Tina Fey big; that's how it was supposed to all play out, n'est-ce pas? Fallon was kissed by Lorne Michael, the Sun King of American comedy. They did start out together, he and Tina -- but then they diverged. But Fallon was that rare Hollywood animal -- a cute man wholly without the danger of any sharp edges, with, an untaxing sense of humor. Isn't that what romantic leading men are all about in Hollywood? Attainable, nice, yet not offensively intelligent. Approachable. Young girls liked him; older women knew they could dominate him. Fallon was the guy that it was okay for women of all ages to like -- he was Carson Daly, only without the creepy "manorexia nervosa," or the laser-focused serial-killer glare, which, we cannot fail to note, is becoming more and more pronounced with each successive humiliation (Please Carson, please don't kill us).
Fallon did "Fever Pitch" where he played opposite Drew Barrymore -- and .. who hasn't, really -- in an unsweetened porridge of RoCom with just enough Boston Red Socks references to keep the Middle American boyfriends lucid, albeit woozy. And then he did that "Taxi" film. With Queen Latifah. Whew. Off-ah. It left him, quite literally, in bad odor with the public; goddam was that a stinker. A "Dutch Oven" of a film, if you will.
Since then, Fallon has been in constant combat brushing off the loser-dust from his lapel. To fall from the Olympian heights of Lorne into doing a late, late night show is harlotry. It must rustle the hobgoblins in the theatre of the mind up something fierce. Weaker men -- cough, cough: Piscopo -- have broken from that fall from comedic glory. At that time of night, Fallon's show is, alas, only useful as a central vertex against the drunken spins. There; we said it. It only gets worse when Jay Leno fucks that whole shit up, conquering the 10 pm slot, sending everyone, even Fallon, one step down the entertainment food chain. Any further down the Hollywood ecosystem and Jimmy Fallon will be shining our shoes while whistling with a robust vibrato in front of 30 Rock.
So it was of no surprise when Brian Williams, NBC anchor, relayed a little anecdote about running into Fallon in an elevator at 30 Rockefeller Center on the Joe Scarborough show yesterday morning. "Well, this will be good for us, huh?" the dejected chump told Williams, who then attempted to fire up the NBC troops with firce forces, "whipping (Fallon up) into a talk show frenzy."
It couldn't have helped that Leno manhandled the kid down a rung, but he just stomped all over his debut with what can only be properly construed as hobnail boots.
We feel your pain (at least rhetorically), Jimmy Fallon; we feel your pain.
No comments:
Post a Comment