'Tonight Show' Wheel of Musical Impressions
If anyone still needed proof that the future of late-night broadcast TV isn’t in the broadcast-watching audience at all, but in the shared viral video clips posted afterward, here it is. In less than a week, the latest edition of Jimmy Fallon’s “Wheel of Musical Impressions” bit, with Fallon and guest Christina Aguilera from NBC’s The Voice taking turns performing “randomly generated” songs while imitating “randomly generated” artists, has clocked over 25 million views on YouTube. That dwarfs the audience that stays up to watch The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon itself, and it is, indeed, a very effective way of promoting the show and showcasing the host and guest. Fallon does just fine as David Bowie doing “Grand Old Flag,” but Aguilera kills it as Britney Spears, her old fellow Mouseketeer on The New Mickey Mouse Show, singing “This Little Piggy.” This new “Musical Impressions” spot already has eclipsed the one by Aguilera’s Voice colleague Adam Levine, which has more than 22 million views at this writing. And for flavorful bites from other Fallon late-night play times, I’d suggest watching both “Wheel of Impressions with Kevin Spacey” (wherein Spacey delights as Christopher Walken), and the Tonight video that has racked up more than 45 million views: “Lip Sync Battle with Emma Stone.” She kills. – David Bianculli