Today's Entertainment

By Kate O'Hare © Zap2it COVER STORY "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" premieres Monday on NBC. Days of future past on 'The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon' 2 x 4" ad 2 – FEBRUARY 16 - 22, 2014 – BRAINERD, MN/DISPATCH 1 x 4" ad With ratings-challenged NBC struggling to find its feet as the broadcast net- work world shifts and rolls beneath it, and with broad- cast television itself being regularly lamented as hav- ing one foot in the grave and the other on slippery ground, one might be tempted to think the Pea- cock might as well fold its tail feathers for good. But there is a center of gravity to the NBC universe, and it is every weeknight, right after your local news — "The Tonight Show." On Monday, Feb. 17, that center shifts from its long- time home in Los Angeles (aka "beautiful downtown Burbank") to its ancestral home of New York, where it launched with host Steve Allen in 1954. After the departure of host Jay Leno (again) following a 22-year run — briefly inter- rupted by a failed experi- ment with Conan O'Brien in 2009-10 — "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" makes its debut from Studio 6B at 30 Rock- efeller Plaza in Manhattan. NBC is hoping that injecting new blood into its most venerable franchise will help the network get its mojo back. It might even be counting on a friendly ghost or two. Studio 6B is same space where Jack Paar was host of "The Tonight Show" from 1957 to '62, and where Johnny Carson did the first third of his run, from 1962 to '72 (he stayed until 1992, when Leno came in). Lorne Michaels of "Saturday Night Live" fame comes in as ex- ecutive producer of the new iteration, with Josh Lieb as producer. "There's that great feel- ing," says Lieb, "of bringing it back to where the show came from, to the studio where Paar and Carson were. It gives us a little more impetus to feel like we have something to live up to. In a good way, the halls echo with the legends." With Seth Meyers replac- ing him as host of the "Tonight" companion show, "Late Night," the 39-year- old Fallon, a new father of a 7-month-old daughter, brings his house band, the Roots, along with his skills as a comic, an interviewer and a song-and-dance man. "In a way," says Lieb, "it's the closest thing to a real variety show that's on TV today."

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