Jimmy Fallon Sells Out(back Steakhouse)

There’s a fine line between deftly integrating corporate sponsorship into your show and being a tactless shill. Late night TV hosts, who clearlyface pressureto draw in advertising dollars, are keenly aware of this — you especially want to avoid turning into an infomercial when your primary competition is infomercials. This is why Colbert always goes way over the top whenever he plugs Doritos. And why Kimmel tempered his in-show KFC ad with F-bombs and clips from Game of Thrones. No one should perform this balancing act better than meme-master Jimmy Fallon, who seems to turn any bithe chooses into a viral wonder. But last week he seemed to forget the rules:

(Sadly, you may have to watch a terrible ad before watching Fallon’s terrible ad.)

Fallon’s integrated ad for Outback Steakhouse’s new appetizer promotion didn’t take the form of a clever musical number or satire (read: comedy). Instead, it was built around him saying “The Tonight Show” in a cheesy Australian accent while wearing an outback-y hat. Employing all the tricks he learned while on SNL, he repeated the gag three times — it was clear the once-enthusiastic studio audience wouldn’t tolerate a fourth.

Yes, it’s getting harder for advertisers to get our attention when we can skip, block, and tune them out while peeping Instagram on our phones. But please Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, and all the rest: if you’re going to force-feed us ads, make them worth watching. Especially you, Fallon. It wasn’t so long ago that you enchanted a late-night nation by forming Ladysmith Snack Mambazo to sell us Pringles. More of that, please:

HT Ariel Roland-Waring