On Monday February 24 2014, Late Night with Seth Meyers premiered on NBC at 12:30 on studio 8G on RockefellerPlaza located in New York City. The previous host, Jimmy Fallon was appointed host of the Tonight Show after Jay Leno announced his exit from the show which lead to Seth Meyers being appointed to the show. Seth Meyers is no stranger to comedy; he was head writer for NBC’s Saturday Night Live and host to the popular sketch The Weekend Update. Since its premier, Late Night with Seth Meyers has received a variety of reviews but they are primarily positive.
Late Night first premiered in the year 1982 after the cancellation of Tomorrow also known as The Tomorrow show hosted by Tom Snyder. Late night has had four male hosts thus far and hosts include David Letterman, Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Fallon, and Seth Meyers. The previous hosts of Late Night have all continued to be successful comedians all of which hold a variety show to this day. David Letterman is the host of The Late Show on CBS, Conan O’Brien is the host of Conan on TBS, and Jimmy Fallon is the current host of The Tonight Show on NBC.
The show commenced with Meyers recreating one of Fallon’s famous sketch Thank You Notes, he jokingly promised to keep the show full of new fun sketches and content. The show’s band also features a new band; the 8B band is led by former SNL cast member and Portlandia star Fred Armensien and also includes members Seth Jabour, Syd Butler, Eli Janney and Kim Thompson.
The monologue was overall funny although there was one joke in which no one in the audience laughed and Meyers had to explain the joke to the audience. Meyers seemed a bit nervous and delivered the monologue very quickly made it seem as though he was doing the Weekend Update which it still very entertaining.
The first guests of the show were Parks and Recreation star Amy Poehler and Vice-President Joe Biden, they were excellent choices. Meyers seemed very relaxed which interviewing Poehler, Poehler also gave him tips on how to deal with a challenging guest. Biden joked that he was planning to announce something very important but he decided to keep that night as Meyer’s.
The show does show promise and hopefully things will go great for Meyers. Other guests this week include presenter Kelly Ripa, rapper Kanye West, actress Lena Dunham, and singer Brad Paisley.