The Tonight Show's Upworthy New Host

Jimmy Fallon gets ready to slow jam the laughs

When Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien and the NBC executive suite mud-wrestled over hosting duties at The Tonight Show in 2009 and 2010, only Jimmy Fallon came out clean. He buckled down, he had only nice things to say, and he did his job. As in his Late Night opening credits, which had him eagerly hoofing it through city streets to his studio, he kept his focus and ran, ran, ran. He ran too fast for any of the dirt to stick to him.

Four years later, Fallon, 39, is taking over Tonight from Leno seemingly the same way O'Brien did: the...

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