Free Republic

“HERE’S A fascinating story,” the longtime host of NBC’s Tonight Show With Jay Leno told his audience last week, mentioning a recent Iowa Supreme Court ruling “that a dentist could legally fire his female assistant because he found her too sexy, too attractive, and a threat to his marriage. She didn’t do anything. She’s just good-looking.” The payoff: “Hey, I’ll bet that’s what happened to me here at NBC!”

“HERE’S A fascinating story,” the longtime host of NBC’s Tonight Show With Jay Leno told his audience last week, mentioning a recent Iowa Supreme Court ruling “that a dentist could legally fire his female assistant because he found her too sexy, too attractive, and a threat to his marriage. She didn’t do anything. She’s just good-looking.” The payoff: “Hey, I’ll bet that’s what happened to me here at NBC!” It’s the sort of joke that is rapidly becoming a staple of Leno’s monologue. (On Monday’s show, riffing on the royal baby, he confided that he was “a little bummed out,...

Jay Leno has officially announced his retirement from NBC's "Tonight Show." As expected, "Late Night" host Jimmy Fallon will succeed Leno in the spring of 2014 when "Tonight" moves back to New York, to 30 Rock -- 42 years after Johnny Carson took the show to Burbank. With Fallon, 38, NBC hopes to capture the younger viewers and compete with ABC's Jimmy Kimmel, who moved to an 11:35 timeslot in January. "Congratulations, Jimmy. I hope you're as lucky as me and hold on to the job until you're the old guy," Leno said in a statement. "If you need me,...

Budget documents state that ‘a talk or variety program’ that gets the credit ‘must be filmed before a studio audience’ of at least 200, have a production budget of at least $30 million or run at least $10 million in capital expenses — and has to have been shot outside New York for at least 5 seasons prior to relocation. New York already gives companies producing movies or television series in the state a tax credit equal to 30% of production costs. It costs the state $420 million in revenue a year.

Sources say some network execs want to launch with Olympics in February; exec producer Lorne Michaels might want more time. It has become clear that Jimmy Fallon is going to become the host of The Tonight Show, but sources say an internal debate among key players is underway regarding the timing.According to these sources, some top executives at NBCUniversal are leaning toward a February launch to take advantage of the promotional platform of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Others, including Late Night executive producer Lorne Michaels, are said to have concerns about rushing the transition.STORY: Sources: NBC Discussing...

Submitted for your consideration without further comment:     If that doesn’t do it for you, there’s much more:     I can’t do any more. You’re on your own ...Read the Rest here>>>

All of this focus on his golfing makes us almost forget...

After watching President Obama’s appearance on Jimmy Fallon the other night, I have decided that the president is too cool. And judging from the response I’ve seen across the Twitterverse and Facebook, so have many naïve and poorly informed members of my generation. Obama’s appearance, like everything else he does on a daily basis, was a calculating campaign move targeting a specific demographic. His opposition to the rising interest rates on student loans is a show intended to shore up his support among college students and recent college graduates. It will last only as long as it takes for him...

Obama jumps the shark with student loan jam President Obama's 'celebrity status' reached perplexing new levels last night on comedian Jimmy Fallon's comedy show last night. After watching this sketch, I think it's fair to say that he has 'jumped the shark.' Last night on the Jimmy Fallon show, Obama "slow jammed" with Jimmy Fallon and his band about his plan to freeze interest rates for student loans, criticizing filibustering Republicans for blocking his plan. Warning that the interest rates for student loans will 'double,' Obama warned that "some hard working students would be paying about $1000 extra just to...

"What they were thinking, I don't know. That's why they're not there anymore," he added. Six Secret Service employees left the agency last week, while another five are on leave and one has been cleared of any wrongdoing. A dozen others, all members of the military, are being investigated for misconduct by the Pentagon. Obama's appearance began with the president and host doing one of Fallon's regular bits, Slow Jamming the News, cracking jokes on student loans. "I'm President Barack Obama, and I, too, want to slow-jam the news,” Obama said as he emerged from behind a curtain. A background...

In celebration of her "Let's Move!" campaign to curb childhood obesity First Lady Michelle Obama engaged in a "fitness challenge" with "Late Night" host Jimmy Fallon. In the White House. In an official photo provided by the White House Michelle Obama is seen competing in a tug of war with Fallon in the Diplomatic Reception Room. The two also hula hoop, do push-ups and run around the White House. Last week, the First Lady visited the set of the "Tonight Show" and made Jay Leno eat exclusive healthy food from the White House. Michelle Obama also competed in a push-up...

Just when we thought the media furor between NBC's Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and Rep. Michele Bachmann was finished, this could stir things up again: Fallon's band leader and drummer Questlove says "Tea Party extremists" are hurling racial slurs at him on Twitter... "Blocking 3,500 Tea Party extremists [on Twitter] in a three day period is no fun, especially when you're a drummer dangerously close to carpal tunnel." Of course, it's highly doubtful the alleged Twitter attackers actually identified themselves as Tea Party members in their Tweets, so he's presumably making an assumption there. The band played "Lyin' A**...

On his Wednesday show, radio host Rush Limbaugh illustrated what would otherwise be an ill-advised hypothetical situation by suggesting that if Michelle Obama were to appear on his radio show, he would introduce the first lady with Sir-Mix-A-Lot’s 1992 hit “Baby Got Back.” Limbaugh’s goal was to “illustrate” what the reaction would be, compared to the scant attention given when GOP presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann was introduced on Jimmy Fallon’s Monday night NBC program to Fishbone’s “Lyin’ A** B****.” “Ladies and gentlemen, it is not often that we have guests here on this program at the EIB Network,” Limbaugh...

The video above confirms that the National Broadcasting Company’s house band for the “Jimmy Fallon Show” serenaded a sitting Congresswoman and presidential candidate with Fishbone’s “Lyin’ Ass Bitch.” What a cruel thing to do, and it’s the last thing you’d expect from someone like Jimmy Fallon, who does come off (or used to) as a pretty decent guy. Michele Bachmann was a “guest” on Fallon’s show and yet he and his house band sucker punch her with “Lyin’ Ass Bitch”? Unbelievable. Actually, it’s not. The game is rigged and has been since the beginning. Candidates today are expected to go...

A Twitter user asked the drummer last night, “you don’t think indirectly calling a guest on your show a ‘bitch’ might blow up in your face? & maybe it should? (I’m a democrat)”. Here was the response. Fallon himself tweeted a few hours ago that the drummer is “grounded” but we’ll have to wait ’til tonight’s show to find out if that means anything more than “please stop yelling at me about Bachmann.”

President Barack Obama collected some big bucks Thursday night at a star-studded fund-raiser in the New York home of movie mogul Harvey Weinstein. Among the guests: actress Gwyneth Paltrow and her husband, Coldplay singer Chris Martin; comedian Jimmy Fallon, designer Vera Wang, singer Alicia Keys, and Vogue editor Anna Wintour, who co-hosted the event. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo was also there as the guests packed around five tables in a basement room. Hundreds of people awaited the president's arrival on the streets of the West Village near the Weinstein residence, a multi-story brick row house. Weinstein said he had...

On Tuesday night’s Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on NBC, during an interview with MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, when Maddow recounted a recent incident in which a man unsuccessfully threw a tomato at Sarah Palin at a public event at a mall, Fallon joked that it was "awful" because the thrower "didn’t come close" to hitting Palin. Fallon: "Didn’t hit her at all? Didn’t come close? Awful." Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the late Tuesday/early Wednesday, December 8th/9th Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on NBC: JIMMY FALLON: Did you hear about what’s going on with Sarah...

Late Night Comedy Makes Fun Of Obama

P>Jimmy Fallon, who was voted by his elementary school class as "Most Likely to Replace David Letterman," debuted last night in the spot vacated by the man who actually did take over, Conan O'Brien. It was pretty predictable stuff, right down to laughing at his own jokes before he even finishes them, but I enjoyed his interviews and hijinx with Bob DeNiro and Justin TImberlake. I wish him well.(See clips and such at these links: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/29469658/ and http://www.latenightwithjimmyfallon.com/ )But I have to give him kudos for doing something during his monologue that others seem incapable of -- telling a joke that actually cuts at...