Gutfeld’s Visit with Fallon Isn’t Without Precedent—But It Sure Feels Different

The news in late night is that a would-be usurper has been invited into the once impregnable throne room.

Or so some would have it.

More mundanely, Jimmy Fallon, the host of The Tonight Show, has invited Greg Gutfeld, a determinedly different sort of late-night talk show host, to be a guest on his couch tonight.

It ranks as worthy of attention because Gutfeld, while carving out a booming niche as a comic voice from the right, has proclaimed to his sizeable Fox News following that he is the rightful “king” of late night, because he gets better ratings than any of the hosts of network late-night programs. (More on that later.)

The booking has sent a frisson of anticipation through the late-night world because it carries a sense of confrontation with it. Not from the Fallon side, because Jimmy’s not a confrontational sort. He’s an entertainer sort.

But Gutfeld surfs on confrontation nightly. It’s the blood-red meat of his program: jokes about woke excesses, Democratic failures (Kamala Harris is still a favorite target), Nancy Pelosi’s facial “baggage,” the physical shape of the lefty women of The View, and notably, the cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s show by CBS:

“New York Governor Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency in NYC, due to severe flooding. Still not sure if it was caused by the rain, or this man’s tears.” (Picture of Colbert.)

That was a joke on Gutfeld’s program last week. He peppered the episode with other shots at the CBS star. Because he got canceled.

That’s one thing that might make tonight’s appearance provocative, because Colbert is held in high regard by his other contemporaries. Most of them, including Fallon, showed up in the Ed Sullivan Theatre in solidarity the first night after the cancellation was announced.

Gutfeld has been giving Fallon big props for “taking a risk” with the move. “While Colbert invited a loser (Harris), Jimmy Fallon invites a winner,” he said on his show.

And: “Fallon seems like a genuinely nice guy who wants to make people laugh instead of sending them to bed angrier than The View at a salad bar.”

The risk for Fallon, as Gutfeld sees it, is alienating hard-core Trump-hating Hollywood stars and viewers by bringing on someone with passionately opposite political opinions from the Stewart-Colbert-Kimmel-Meyers-Oliver-Maher cadre of hosts.

It doesn’t really qualify as a total breakthrough. Bill O’Reilly, who was the dominant Fox News host of his time, was a frequent guest of David Letterman’s. While she was a Fox host, Megyn Kelly visited both Fallon and Seth Meyers. The chief Fox anchor, Bret Baier, has been a guest with Colbert (of all people) at least three times.

Still, Gutfeld is right that it feels different with him. He has branded himself (with Fox’s help) the comic defender of Trump and MAGA-ites everywhere against the slings and arrows—and relentless ridicule—from that Hollywood high-profile late-night cadre, who still get to host the Oscars and win the Mark Twain Prize.

Trump, of course, is not amused. All those guys, including Fallon, have been attacked by the President, to the point of his urging their networks to ax them, because they’re “untalented” and “unfunny” (and moreover, mean to him).

Having a host dedicated to full-on defense of a president is a historical incongruity, because in America, thanks to that first item in the amendments list, the President has always been a principal target of those who speak funny to power. (Just ask Lincoln about some of those political cartoons depicting him.)

Trump has changed the game. The country is firmly siloed now, with Trump dividing comedy as much as he has most everything else into an us vs them death match. Neither Ronald Reagan nor Bill Clinton tried to nudge the FCC chair to hinting at threats of license renewals because the jokes from Carson or Leno or Letterman hurt so bad.

Likewise, I don’t recall Biden hurling threatening invective at Gutfeld.

That old guy supplied the bulk of material for the Fox host for four years (and the spigot is still on), because point-of-view comedy is what topical jokes are all about now. Not the gentler jabs of the past, but nastier, edgier stuff.

Gutfeld is good at it. He might be too much a down-puncher for non-MAGA folk. But his mock-comedy—all the fat jokes, the dumping on “sensitive” men—is perfectly attuned to his audience.

And yes, his regular audience of 3+ million viewers is strong, and tops everyone in that Trump-slashing late-night frat house. But the math, like certain things that come out of the leader’s mouth, (e.g. drug prices being cut by 1,500 percent,) needs a little clarification.

“Gutfeld!” is on at 10 p.m. in New York, which is not actually “late night.” Obviously more people are awake at that hour than 11:30 p,m.-12:30 a.m., or 12:30 a.m.-1:30 a.m.. And if that seems like a lame technicality, how about Gutfeld’s show airing at 9 p.m. in Chicago? And 8 p.m. in Denver and 7 p.m. in LA?

Kinda, sorta an advantage? More to the point, it means that Gutfeld isn’t routinely competing head-to-head with those other shows.

That’s not so say he’s not a hit. Gutfeld has built a legitimate brand that fills out the Fox lineup, adding laughs for the channel’s faithful before bed. And the format—no band, no desk, no curtains, just a panel of regulars in comfy chairs throwing out one-liners—likely means no major financial losses.

So, it’s not a “stunt” to book Gutfeld on The Tonight Show. He figures to be prepared and funny, and Fallon, as he always is, to be generous in his approach.

Will Gutfeld’s ungenerous glee over Colbert being canceled come up?

That would be interesting. We’ll find out tonight.

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