How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Jimmy Fallon

by Daniel Bullard-Bates

I never much cared about Jimmy Fallon. He seems a nice enough guy, but he never stood out to me as a comedian. He got a late night show, and this meant nothing to me. (Well, I was amazed to find out that The Roots are his house band, since they're incredible.) But then something interesting happened. First, he had Kudo Tsunoda on the show to talk about Project Natal. Still, it seemed like a one time thing, and Natal seems like the sort of video game project that would have mainstream appeal.

On October 2, 2009, Jimmy Fallon won me over. Tim Schafer, the man behind Psychonauts and one of the people responsible for The Secret of Monkey Island, was one of the headline guests on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Not only did Fallon have such a great figure in video games on the show, he offered up a sort of mission statement for his show: that they want to treat video game releases like movie openings. He even likens Tim Schafer's name on the cover of Brütal Legend to saying that a movie is a Martin Scorsese film.

Consider me impressed. This is the sort of mainstream attention and respect that video games should be getting, especially as the industry grows to rival that of music and film. I'm glad to see Tim Schafer on a late night show, and I'm grateful to Jimmy Fallon and his team for having the presence of mind to put him there. Who would have guessed that the star of Taxi would one day have his finger so firmly on the pulse of the modern audience?