JIMMY FALLON / THE INSPIRATION SERIES
Come on.
Join in.
Music, picture books, and the pleasure
of making room for another player.
By Rob Urban
There is a moment in a good game when explaining the rules gives way to playing. The people in the room begin watching one another. Someone tries something. Someone else laughs, and the atmosphere changes.
That moment helps explain what I enjoy in Jimmy Fallon’s work. He has a strong instinct for inviting people into an activity, giving them something to do together, and letting their pleasure become part of the entertainment.
Music and children’s books make that instinct especially easy to see. Both can begin with a small, accessible premise. Both can hold considerable craft beneath an appearance of simplicity.
Looking closely at those parts of his work also brings other talented people into view. A playful host needs people worth playing with.
PLAY / TOGETHER
Small instruments.
A very good band.
Consider the 2014 performance of “Let It Go” with Idina Menzel and the Roots, documented by BroadwayWorld with an instrument list.
Menzel had a triangle. Questlove played kazoo and jingle sticks. Kamal Gray played xylophone; James Poyser, melodica. Fallon’s instruments included toy blocks, a bass drum and a Casio keyboard.
The list itself contains the charm of the idea. These are approachable objects placed in the hands of accomplished performers. The arrangement creates a fresh setting for a familiar song.
I appreciate how the premise makes musical skill inviting. A listener can recognize the small instruments and still be interested in what the musicians make possible with them.
The Roots are essential to that pleasure. Naming the players helps us hear the segment as a collaboration, with individual contributions inside its cheerful surface.
Fallon’s role is part of the ensemble. He joins the activity and helps give the audience permission to enjoy its absurdity.
PLAY / BY EAR
A song you know.
A friend who knows it too.
In their 2011 joint GQ interview, Fallon and Justin Timberlake describe developing “History of Rap” by trading medley ideas backstage. Timberlake also praises the Roots’ musical range.
I like the creative situation they describe: two people remembering songs and discovering what those memories might become together. Familiarity gives the audience an entrance. The performers’ enthusiasm gives the sequence momentum.
There is affection inside that kind of musical comedy, and room for the listener’s own memories to join it.
PLAY / ON THE PAGE
The smallest
reading room.
Macmillan credits This Is Baby to Fallon and illustrator Miguel Ordóñez. Published in 2019, the book introduces words for parts of the body.
It is a different scale of entertainment: a book close enough for a child to touch, an adult’s voice, a picture that gives the words somewhere to land.
The illustrator belongs at the center of that experience. The drawing can invite attention before a child knows how to read a sentence. Words and images take turns helping the reader along.
I appreciate the way a picture book distributes the performance. The author and illustrator make something another person can bring to life at home.
A parent can change a voice, pause, point or linger. A child can interrupt. The book’s simplicity leaves space for that relationship.
Ordóñez’s credit is a reminder that the object carries more than the famous name on its cover.
PLAY / AT YOUR PACE
There is a tired adult
holding the book.
Speaking to WBUR’s Here & Now in 2019, Fallon described wanting This Is Baby to suit a tired parent as well as a young child. He imagined a reading that could be brief or could stretch out through play.
That is an attentive way to think about an audience. The person reading aloud has a body, a long day and a limited supply of energy.
A book can offer a good experience without requiring the same performance every night. Sometimes the pleasure is in lingering; sometimes it is in reaching a warm ending together.
The observation makes me appreciate his writing more. He is thinking about the circumstances in which another person will use it.
That kind of consideration is easy to overlook because the result feels uncomplicated. The ease is part of what has been considered.
PLAY / AGAIN
The joke needs
you to turn the page.
In his 2017 conversation with Terry Gross on Fresh Air, Fallon remembers reading childhood books with his own children.
One favorite was The Monster at the End of This Book, in which Grover tries to keep the reader from turning pages. Fallon describes enjoying it as a child and sharing it with the next generation.
It is a fitting book to remember in this context. Turning the page becomes participation. The reader has a role in the joke.
That possibility helps explain the appeal of entertainment built around an invitation. A person can do a very small thing and feel included in what happens next.
I find something lovely in the continuity of that pleasure: a child enjoys a comic device, grows up, and helps another child discover it.
The work I value here makes room for shared enjoyment.
A song gives musicians and listeners something to recognize together. A book gives an adult and a child a few minutes of play. A small premise creates enough structure for people to relax into it.
There is craft in finding that premise, and generosity in making it easy to enter. It asks for curiosity and a willingness to participate.
That is the part of Fallon’s creative life I admire. He has made many occasions for people to sing, laugh, remember something they love, or briefly become less self-conscious together. Those are worthwhile things to offer an audience.
Sources: BroadwayWorld’s documented 2014 performance and instrument credits; Fallon and Timberlake’s GQ interview; Macmillan’s author and illustrator credits; and interviews with Here & Now and Fresh Air. Linked throughout. This essay considers selected creative work. Interpretation by Rob Urban.