Fans of late night talk shows—college students and people with babies who wake up 87 times during the night—know that Conan is scheduled to take over the Tonight Show in the autumn, and that Jimmy Fallon will take over Late Night at the same time. But did you know that NBC will use THE INTERNET to give Fallon a chance to test out his material? Yup, Lorne Michaels, producer of Late Night (and SNL head honcho) said that beginning this autumn NBC will start airing short (5-10 minutes) Web episodes of Fallon’s show. They’re to be posted every day at 12:30, you know, because people have to be trained to see Fallon on at that time.
Reason for all this? Conan’s early days as host of Late Night were, let’s say, not good, and NBC doesn’t want to throw Fallon on TV without giving him a chance to work out any issues he may have… like whether or not he’s funny. (I actually don’t mind him, to be honest.)
So how do you like that, the TV networks throwing us Internet folk a bone for a change.