It's been over a year and a half since I saw a Late Night with Seth Meyers taping, and it's been a little over half a year since I've seen a Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon taping. Those two days were two of the best days of my life, and they changed my life in more ways than one.
Late night television shows are a unique genre of television, and I absolutely love them. I've always loved shows like Saturday Night Live, and I love the new renditions of older shows, like the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the Late Late Show with James Corden, and the Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Even though I love those shows, the late night shows hosted by Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers hold a special place in my heart.
When I saw Seth Meyers' show, he was just starting out his tenure on Late Night. The atmosphere at the show was very upbeat and personable. It was pretty relaxed, and the guests that were on the show that aired from my taping were Blake Lively, Gina Rodriguez, and Jessie Baylin. He also pre-taped a segment at Yankee Stadium, which was pretty funny. At the taping, Blake Lively wasn't there because she came the day before and filmed her interview and her segment with Seth. We still got to see Gina Rodriguez, the star of Jane the Virgin, and we got to see Jessie Baylin perform. My experience at Late Night was great. Seth asked the audience for some questions, and the staff and crew were really nice and really funny. The house band for Seth Meyers, the 8G Band, were good, too. This experience fueled the fire and the love that I've developed for the genre of late night television.
The truly life-changing moment for me was when I got tickets to go see a taping of the Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon. The tickets were extremely difficult to get, and I had tried to get on to the waitlist for a few years. The moment that I got the email from the Tonight Show audience management saying that I got tickets to the show was one of the best moments of my life. My happiness was unparalleled. The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon was much more structured and formal, and it was on a whole different level compared to Seth Meyers' show. Since Jimmy was on in the prime late night hour, he was extremely popular. The entire experience of the day, from waiting in the Peacock Lounge, to taking the elevators up into the studio that I've always dreamed of stepping foot in, was surreal. Jimmy was so personable with us, and his audience team was fantastic. His warmup man was hilarious, and the house band, The Roots, are absolutely legendary. They're from Philadelphia, and it was amazing seeing a famous band from my area on the same stage as one of my favorite people in the world. I didn't stop smiling throughout the entire taping. I was always laughing or smiling. I went on a Friday, so that meant that I saw Jimmy's infamous Thank You Notes segment. The guests that night were Aaron Paul from Breaking Bad, Governor Chris Christie, and comedian Nate Bargatze.
The amount of happiness that those tapings brought me was an amount of happiness that I hadn't reached in so long. I wasn't thinking about anything else in life; only about the hilarious segments and jokes that were being told in front of me. I felt like I could actually let loose and be myself. I got a high-five from Jimmy Fallon after the taping, and I was on TV. It was an amazing day in my life, and it was when I really needed a good laugh and a pick me up in my life. The fullness and happiness that you feel when you go to a late night TV taping are indescribable. It's something that I think that everyone should experience, because the whole experience opened my eyes and changed my views of both the entertainment industry and the people who were involved in making my experience as amazing as it was.
