If Jimmy Fallon ever has an idea for a TV show that isn’t so aggressively unfunny and corporatized that it puts permanent frown lines on the faces of actual comedians, he should have it bronzed.
In 2025, the late-night host has become the most endangered subspecies of comedian, thanks to shifting trends in content distribution and political pressure from the highest office in the country. Back in July, Paramount announced that they were ending The Late Show franchise upon the expiration of host Stephen Colbert’s contract, just weeks after Colbert accused his corporate bosses of paying a $16 million bribe to President Donald Trump in order to secure FCC approval on their acquisition deal with Skydance Media. Just days after CBS shuttered its last and most iconic late-night show, Trump gave the merger the all-clear and gloated about Colbert’s exit from the time slot.
Meanwhile, the Tonight Show host has spent his summer working on exciting new ways to sell his face, voice, brand and soul to enormous multinational corporations while taking up even more space on the broadcast TV schedule with his commercial, consumerist, tasteless trash. Late last month, Fallon hosted the 86-minute product showcase “Made by Google ‘25,” and the late-night and Saturday Night Live veteran will launch his advertising competition show On Brand on NBC this September 30th.
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As Doug Lussenhop, better known by the moniker DJ Douggpound, said on a recent episode of Office Hours Live with Tim Heidecker, “Think of the hell (Fallon) would be in if he had to sit with himself silently for 10 minutes.
During Fallon’s depressingly awkward hosting gig on “Made by Google ‘25,” even the Google fanboys couldn’t force themselves to have any more enthusiasm for Fallon’s “performance” than the host had for the new Pixel’s weirdly bossy photography instructions. “Google: Please act excited. Jimmy Fallon: Why tho?” one YouTube user commented under the live stream, which racked up more than 8 million views.
“Did Google threaten to publish Jimmy’s search history? Looked like he was a hostage,” another fan wrote of the deeply uncomfortable showcase.
“Why does Jimmy Fallon look like he’s gazing into the distance no matter what he’s looking at?” one more viewer asked.
And, while Fallon looked marginally more animated in the trailer for On Brand, it’s hard to imagine anyone besides the That’s My Jam host getting genuinely excited about his newest insipid slop series. The official logline for On Brand calls it an “all-new reality competition where creatives at the On Brand Agency go head-to-head to come up with marketing campaigns for America’s leading brands,” and Fallon’s opening line of “I love advertising!” would even be considered corny, soulless and forced if he posted it directly on LinkedIn.
At age 50, Fallon has clearly given up all pretense of being an actual comedian and has committed his career solely to courting and pushing corporate sponsors with the most uninspired, mechanical, consume-product dogshit in a media environment that’s absolutely flooded with uninspired, mechanical, consume-product dogshit.
As one Office Hours fan asked, “If Jimmy Fallon was replaced by an A.I. model, would anyone even notice?”