The Institution of Late Night Talk

credit to Ian Hughes

While collecting references for my annotated bibliography I came across a thesis entitled The Evolution of Mediatized Stand-Up Comedy: Investigating Para-Performances on Television, Film, and YouTube by Mirali Almaula. The thesis explores Stand Up Comedy performances and the effects that new media (specifically) Youtube has had on how performers craft their routines. I’m not using this piece as one of my references as it doesn’t directly speak to institutions or have much to do with what my group has decided to focus on. But, while reading the thesis’s abstract I thought about late night talk shows and specifically The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon as well as Jimmy Kimmel Live! both of these shows produce bits that they know will work outside the context of the entire episode.

Within the past 10 years the way we view television has changed drastically. How I view late night shows has changed the most drastically. I and many of my peers rarely if ever sit down and watch an entire episode of The Tonight Show but you can easily catch us spending an hour or more watching Tonight Show Hashtags or the many bits of Jimmy Kimmel making kids cry .

The Tonight Show is the world’s longest airing talk show and is widely considered an ‘American Institution’. My Grandparents watched it, My parent’s watched it, and I now watch it. I now watch it because of Jimmy Fallon. When Jay Leno was the host the material did not speak to me, and the material did not work on the platform in which I was watching (youtube). Jimmy Fallon with Late Night and then The Tonight Show was able to take a long-standing format (monologue, game/sketch, interview, musical performance or guest standup) and re-energise it to fit the changing media landscape.