A day in the night of ‘The Tonight Show’
LA TimesIt takes nearly 200 people around 10 hours each day to churn out an episode of “The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon.” We spent the day with showrunner Chris Miller, who joined in 2022, to watch how the magic unfolds. “What makes for a good writers’ room in general is to allow for people to not feel they’re just throwing creativity into the void,” says Miles. “When you do get something on the air, it’s a rush to hear the audience response.” 10:30 a.m.: An overall production meeting is held in the ping pong room with anywhere from 150 to 170 people squeezed in to go over ratings, general announcements, hiatus weeks and show post-mortems. “We’ll offer them ‘second guest,’ and they’re like, ‘Well, they might go with Kimmel.’” And I’m like, “I want to stick with second.” 3 p.m.: Meeting with Fallon where they read through the entire monologue and tweak it. 7:30 p.m.-ish: Miller is finally done “It’s a solid 11-hour day,” he says.
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