Episode 40

FORTY!

So clearly, NBC made it mandatory that Jimmy do 40 shows straight before he gets a week off.  A well earned week off too as he and the writers have worked their fanny off to establish a solid base for the show. 

MONOLOGUE:  It seemed like a short monologue, but not surprising due to the amount of show tonight!. Few notables. Glad to see Arthur get another segment on the show with people dancing on the street talking about women’s rights. Questions and Danswers: Equal Pay for Women I don’t laugh out loud often on these late night talk shows, but that dog coming back to get his cd joke got me. 

Really surprised KISS let Mark, the bass player from the Roots, play their guitar. Usually musicians are really particular about their stuff.

THANK YOU NOTES: Is this Friday staple one of the best talk show segments on Late Night TV? Rosie Perez impression?? Well okay!  “All by Myself” into some hot sax! And they pass it around this time!!! Hot Sax is a beautiful thing that’s carried over from the last 2 months of Late Night.  Another laugh out loud moment with the LBJ Thank you Note. Was not expecting that punch line and accent with the guitar strum… All that followed by some extremely hilarious sexual innuendoes. Jimmy putting Higgins in timeout is definitely the first time it’s happened on the show. Tremendous improv here tonight.  Thank You Notes: Easter Bunny Costumes, LBJ, K…

GUESTS: NICK CAGE!  Andy Sandberg has forever ruined this actor for me. That said, Simon Helberg from the Big Bang Theory actually has one of the greatest Nicolas Cage impressions I’ve seen. The second segment with Cage was far better than the first. We got a story of Cage handling a venomous snake, Jimmy doing an impression of having a conversation with a whale and told a story of seeing a lizard on a wall of his hotel that would eat the roaches. Nicolas Cage Is Always Looking for His Next Adv…  Nicolas Cage Has a Rough History with Animals

Emily VanCamp is an actress I’m not familiar with, but Jimmy does a great job of making us feel like we do, and totally takes over the interview. Which, in this case I’m okay with. He tells a great story of his mom having bad knees, (trust me, I’m not that heartless). VanCamp matches Jimmy’s story with one of her own and her family’s cell phone plan. Big thing I took from this interview, I’m going to be calling Captain America, Cap’n’America, like Cap’n Crunch. 

MUSICAL GUEST: KISS! I’m really trying to figure out where this was filmed. I don’t recognize the set. It’s definitely not in Jimmy’s Tonight Show Studio, nor is it in SNL’s 8H studio. My goodness what a staging. By far, the biggest production staging wise, and camera wise, the way it was shot had a lot of energy, which was directed in such a way, you could feel the adrenaline in the studio (I tweeted to @FallonTonight if it was the old 6A studio across the hall, and the show Favorited it, so that may have been the location). It definitely had one of those “Outdoor Concert Series” vibes to it, and it worked. I wouldn’t be surprised if big list music acts follow suite and play in this space.