Jimmy Fallon may be a marker of success in late night today, but on Tuesday’s Tonight Show, he reminded viewers that wasn’t always the case.
Chatting with guest Judd Apatow, the host shared a rejection letter he received after an attempt to get booked on Late Show with David Letterman.
Inspired by Apatow’s new book, Comedy Nerd, which dives into the producer’s personal archives of comedy history, Fallon trotted out some ephemera from his own personal collection during their interview. The host first showed off handwritten notes from his first standup routine—written for a local comedy club’s impression contest that he wound up winning—before moving on to an artifact that had a less positive outcome.
“I brought one I thought you might laugh at,” Fallon told Apatow as he produced the rejection letter from Letterman’s team he received in 1995. The response came after a 20-year-old Fallon had submitted a tape of his stand-up to Letterman’s show.
“Thanks for letting us take a look at your set,” the note began. “Unfortunately, we’re going to pass for now.”
Despite the blunt rejection, Fallon implied he wasn’t too crushed by the outcome. “I was so excited that I even got a letter back from Letterman saying ’No,’ that I saved the rejection letter,” he explained, “Because I thought that was cool.”
For Fallon, the kicker of the rejection was what the rejection letter came with.
“Thanks again for thinking of Late Show,” the letter continued. “Enclosed please find the videotape you sent us.”
“They actually sent me the tape back!” Fallon remarked.
“’We don’t want it stinking up our office,’” Apatow joked.
As Fallon notes, the letter came from Late Show’s talent assistant, Zoe Friedman. Friedman—the daughter of Budd Friedman, founder of Los Angeles comedy institution The Improv—later went on to form the nonprofit Comedy Gives Back. (Friedman recently sat down with comedian and new Comics Unleashed executive producer Jodi Miller on Miller’s podcast, Don’t Call Me Ma’am.)
“And you know what?” Apatow told Fallon after seeing Friedman’s rejection letter. “She was probably right.” The producer then commiserated with Fallon about early career rejections, recounting a time when Jay Leno personally called him to reject jokes that Apatow had sent him.
Just three years after his Letterman rejection, Fallon landed his dream job—a spot on the cast of Saturday Night Live. A year later after that (in November 1999), he finally made his debut on Letterman’s Late Show:
It sounds like Letterman and his staff had good taste.
Fuckface Fallon, a late night marker of success?
Whoever wrote that deserves to be physically shamed for that bullshit!
I don’t blame them one bit.