A trip to the taping of the Tonight Show will cost you nothing, as long you can secure tickets. The process itself is kind of ridiculous – but I mean it worked for me so I’m not complaining. Here is how it works: once a month tickets go on sale for the coming month around 11:00 am and then you need to try and frantically click on a button for your selected day, a la APR 2.0. The site will crash, but just keep refreshing. Once you have selected your day, you will be put on a waiting list and two weeks before your chosen show you will be informed if you have the tickets. Pretty crazy, but hey if you are lucky (like myself) it can happen to you. The Tonight Show overbooks, so you are forced to arrive at Rockefeller Plaza around 3:00 p. m. and wait around for the 5:00 p. m. taping. Once you show your reserved tickets you are forced into another line where they make it explicitly clear you are not allowed to take pictures or you will be shot on site (okay maybe I am exaggerating a little bit, but phone security is comparable to Seinfeld’s soup Nazi). You are given a number or a letter based upon how young your group looks and from there seated in a room filled with LED displays of Tonight Show moments and an unfortunate close up of Tim McGraw’s crotch in leather pants.
Yet, it is well worth the wait because the taping is exceptional. The Roots or The “Legendary” Roots Crew, as they are constantly referred to, play live music to pump up the crowd before Fallon comes out to say his monologue.They were absolutely fantastic – though Captain Kirk Douglas felt my sister was not being loud enough and gave her daggers all night.Fallon and announcer Steve Higgins are absolutely hilarious, and go on tangents frequently throughout the taping. We were treated to the Tonight Show staple “Hashtags” and appearances from The Martian actress, Jessica Chastain and acapella group, Pentatonix.The studio looks way bigger on television, and a lot of content is cut, but overall it’s quite the experience. You can easily see why Jimmy Fallon is highly regarded as one of the best in late night television. While wait times and the lack of a plethora of photos to Instagram, of course took away from the excitement, an awkward high five from Jimmy Fallon almost certainly made up for it.