(Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Despite our repeated requests for consideration for Aisha Tyler, NBC has announced that Saturday Night Live alum Seth Meyers will be taking over for Jimmy Fallon when he moves to The Tonight Show next year. “No premiere date has been announced, but NBC has said Leno’s exit and Fallon’s debut will coincide with the Winter Olympics coverage in 2014,” says CNN. That would be in February.

You probably recognize Meyers from the SNL “Weekend Update” anchor chair. The 39-year-old has been with that show for 12 years. This also puts him in line to be the next host of The Tonight Show, but there’s a long way to go for that.

Related, Lorne Michaels, the executive producer of SNL will also be behind the scenes at both The Tonight Show and Late Night. Both shows will be in New York now, so there’s more opportunity to sit in on a live audience.

Will you be tuning in?

(AP Photo/NBC, Lloyd Bishop, File)

We’ve been following the late-night saga on NBC, with the final decision coming down last week: Jimmy Fallon will be replacing Jay Leno next year. This is great for people who find Leno unwatchable. But, nonetheless, it’s just another game of musical chairs. A white male who once hosted a show at 12:30 a.m. is now hosting one an hour earlier. SNL‘s Seth Meyer is rumored to be in the running to take that 12:30 slot. And late night will be as lacking in diversity as ever.

Among the suggestions that have been made as an alternative to all of this is Chelsea Handler (who already has a couple of shows on the E! Network), and, our personal suggestion, Aisha Tyler. However, according to the AP, which takes TV to task for this state of affairs, neither woman is in serious contention for a job.

“Women have exhibited an interest in talking for centuries. I’m not sure how it is that no one has seemed to notice,” the article quotes Merrill Markoe, an Emmy award-winning writer who has worked with David Letterman.

Aisha Tyler. (Dan Steinberg/Invision/AP)

The article goes on to blame a reluctance to change in the television industry. But what’s getting neglected by these late-night execs is the fact that late-night viewing habits are already changing. The major networks are now sharing the landscape with cable, where shows like The Daily Show, HGTV programming (a mellow, pre-slumber alternative to the yuk yuks on other stations), and reruns of some of your favorite movies and bygone TV shows are running. It’s always interesting to see your favorite celeb sit down to talk about their new movie. But no one has to tune in to a TV show at 11:30 at night to do so. The Internet has made sure of that.

But on that note, the AP says that the networks have research that shows women prefer to watch a man on late night, “while Oprah Winfrey, Ellen DeGeneres and Katie Couric are welcome in daytime.” And the majority of people watching these late-night shows are women. It’s the guys who are choosing the alternatives we mentioned.

And in terms of racial diversity, the fact that shows hosted by comedians like George Lopez and Wanda Sykes were cancelled gives the networks the excuse, “Well we tried, but people aren’t interested.”

Just like anything else, you have to keep trying until you find someone who captivates. So TV is going back to the tried-and-true: Arsenio Hall is getting a show in September. But it’s going to be syndicated rather than broadcast on one of the major stations.

So we’re going to — ONCE AGAIN — push for Aisha Tyler. Funny, smart, edgy, she’s just what any station needs.

Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

NBC has finally announced what we already knew: Jay Leno is out as host of The Tonight Show come Spring 2014 and Jimmy Fallon is in. Fallon just closed a new deal with NBC this morning, and Leno followed soon after with his statement on the matter. “Congratulations Jimmy,” CNN quotes him. “I hope you’re as lucky as me and hold on to the job until you’re the old guy. If you need me, I’ll be at the garage.” Leno had been the host for 22 years and topped the ratings. Fears about the 62-year-old host losing a young audience to Jimmy Kimmel on ABC played a role in the change.

Just as exciting, we’ll get to see The Roots an hour earlier! We support that. Moreover, for the New Yorkers, the show is coming back East. So we can just mosey on over to 30 Rock and check it out.

Even though there had been speculation about all of this, it seems like things moved kind of quickly in the end. It was only the other day that we were watching the two do their best West Side Story in a skit that got a lot of pick up.

AP Photo/NBC Universal, Lloyd Bishop

It’s looking more and more likely that Jay Leno will be giving up his place as host of The Tonight Show, turning it over to Late Night host (and viral video hit maker) Jimmy Fallon. The details haven’t been worked out, but The New York Times is saying this could happen by fall 2014. And the show would leave Los Angeles and head back to New York, where it started in 1954.

“One senior executive who has been involved in the discussions said on Wednesday that ‘there is no way on earth that this is not going to happen,’” one source told the Times.

One of the reasons the paper says Fallon wants to stay in NYC is to hang on to his stellar house band, The Roots. Many of Fallon’s most popular jokes, skits, and videos involve Questlove and the crew, so this is an important part of the show. Moreover, Fallon is from New York and has deep roots of his own in the city.

Jay Leno remains strangely popular, topping the ratings for the past few years. The question Buzzfeed asks is why everyone — except those viewers who keep Leno on top — dislike him so much. Some of the general perceptions of the host that are used in the story include “moral cowardice,” “sniveling backstabber,” and “modern milquetoast.”

“The combined effect of all these sins was to set in stone an animus towards Leno that nothing can touch. To be a thinking or cool person in America is to hate Jay, and like Dave, or Conan, or Kimmel, or Jon Stewart: anyone in the long line of talk show hosts breaking off a niche of the stratifying media world by being edgier and cooler than Leno,” the article says. Eeek.

Do you still watch late night network TV? Would Jimmy Fallon bring you back?

I don’t know if you’ve been tuning in, but Justin Timberlake has been on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon churning out mad memorable skits and performances while promoting his new album, The 20/20 Experience. This album, which is already getting rave reviews, drops next Tuesday on March 19. While on the show last night, there was a particularly hilarious skit that involved Jimmy Fallon, Justin Timberlake and Michael McDonald (personally, our favorite blue eyed male soul singer). Knowing Fallon does some of the best impressions of popular music figures, he dressed up as McDonald in a white wig, blazer and keyboard in tow, to sing a very soulful version of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” Yes, you read right. Fallon started the song, and then when the lights went up, there stood Timberlake in the exact same outfit, same wig, ready to do his part of the round. A few moments later, when the lights went up one more time, there stood Michael McDonald, real hair, his own outfit, to finish the round of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” In the end, all three men turned the song into a “What A Fool Believes”-esque big band song that McDonald is known for, and may I add, all the impressions of McDonald were flawless. Hilarious. Check the video out for yourself to see!

And if you have a minute, you might want to also watch the two perform another hilarious skit from Tuesday night where they sing “Hotback” as part of a barbershop quintet. I’m telling you, Late Night With Jimmy Fallon is the only late night talk show you need to be watching! Always entertaining, in my opinion (trust me, nobody slid me some dollars to say that…). Enjoy!

Howard Stern and his wife Beth Ostrosky Stern. ©Patrick McMullan== Photo – PAUL BRUINOOGE/PatrickMcMullan.com== == (PatrickMcMullan.com via AP Images)

We’re totally OK with the possibility of Jay Leno’s departure from late-night television, but this is a step in the wrong direction.

The New York Post says NBC is preparing to put Howard Stern in Jimmy Fallon’s place once Fallon makes the move to 11:35. Mind you, when last we looked, NBC hadn’t confirmed that Leno was leaving. But if he is, so be it. He’s just so blah! Howard Stern on the other hand? Not a fan. I stopped paying attention years ago when I couldn’t take the crudeness anymore. Then he went to America’s Got Talent and apparently became America’s Sweetheart.

The tabloid paper quotes his wife Beth Ostrosky Stern, “We were in a hotel and all these little kids recognize him now as the judge from ‘America’s Got Talent.’ Usually it’s their dads. But now it is screaming little kids. People are now seeing him for who he really is.”

Once again, we’re going to suggest Aisha Tyler. A new voice, funny, a fan of The Walking Dead… who’s with us?

Aisha Tyler. (Dan Steinberg/Invision/AP)

Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

NBC could be preparing to announce Jay Leno’s departure from the 11:35 p.m. late night spot he’s occupied for years. According to The Hollywood Reporter’s sources, Jay Leno has a contract through 2014 and would be “reluctant” to leave (remember that whole Conan O’Brien thing), but there are fears that ABC’s decision to move Jimmy Kimmel to the competing position has NBC on edge. Kimmel is taking some of the 18-to-49 demographic that is so important for advertisers. (Leno still leads in the ratings, unbelievably.)

Moreover, if David Letterman does step down after his contract is up in 2014, it could be an opening for even more competition, with CBS likely picking a replacement that will attract those coveted younger viewers.

Execs at NBC deny that any change is planned.

Aisha Tyler. (Dan Steinberg/Invision/AP)

Personally, I’m all about The Daily Show and Colbert around this time, but if we have to choose, Jimmy Fallon is the more exciting of the late-night hosts (with Letterman running a close second). From dancing with the First Lady, to his great musical guests, to his Downton Abbey spoof “Downton Sixby,” he’s so much funnier now than he had even been on SNL.

But, why can’t a woman or a minority take one of these late-night spots? Is Chelsea Handler really the only game in town? Has anyone checked in with Aisha Tyler lately?

First Lady Michelle Obama speaking in Missouri last Thursday. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)

Although the First Lady’s anti-obesity campaign, Let’s Move, has prompted awareness of healthy eating issues, some are criticizing her approach. The campaign, which has celebrated its third anniversary, is the White House’s effort to fight obesity, especially in children. The latest stats indicate that about one-third of U.S. children are overweight or obese.

According to a recent op-ed Michelle Obama wrote for the Wall Street Journal making the business case for healthy food, companies are making money off of health food. But some in the food industry have criticized the campaign as government intrusion, according to the Huffington Post.

“Conservatives accused Mrs. Obama of going too far and dictating what people should — and shouldn’t — eat after she played a major behind-the-scenes role in the passage in 2010 of a child nutrition law that required schools to make foods healthier,” reports HuffPo.  And some companies are complaining that healthier food costs more and thus doesn’t sell as well.

In her editorial, FLOTUS wrote, “Every day, great American companies are achieving greater and greater success by creating and selling healthy products. In doing so, they are showing that what’s good for kids and good for family budgets can also be good for business.”

Whole Foods, which sells  healthy offerings, has increased its sales at an annual average rate of 13 percent over the past five years, according to financial site, The Motley Fool. And, sales of organic foods grew by 9.5 percent in 2001, outpacing the traditional grocery industry, according to Business News Daily.

However, according to a New York Times investigation, major food companies boost their bottom line by making addictive and extremely unhealthy products.

Still, nutritionists applaud the effort. Larry Soler, president and chief executive of the Partnership for a Healthier America, told the news site that Mrs. Obama has “been the leader in making the case for the time is now in childhood obesity and everyone has a role to play in overcoming the problem.”

And the general public seems to welcome the influence. According to a recent Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll, more than eight in 10 of those surveyed, 84 percent, support requiring more physical activity in schools, and 83 percent favor government providing people with nutritional guidelines and information about diet and exercise. Seventy percent are in favor of restaurants putting calorie counts on menus, and 75 percent consider being overweight or obese a serious problem in this country, according to the telephone survey of 1,011 adults.

More than that, Michelle Obama is a great spokesperson for the issue. Ever since her video with Jimmy Fallon went up a little over a week ago, “The Evolution of Mom Dance,” it has gotten over 14 million views. That video was to promote the Let’s Move campaign.

Adding criticism upon criticism, there are some that say the First Lady is making too many public appearances. Even if her Let’s Move work is justified, some were put off by her video appearance on the Oscars. She responded to that on the Today show on Friday.

“That’s just the nature of life,” the First Lady said about the criticism. Of course, she’s also gotten a lot of attention she didn’t ask for over her new bangs, an issue brought up during the interview as well.

According to HuffPo, Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer and the site of that Today show interview, now not only includes nutritional labeling on its store brands  but has also pledged to cut sodium and added sugars by 25 percent and 10 percent, respectively, by 2015, and remove industrially produced trans fats. Leslie Dach, a Wal-Mart executive vice president, told HuffPo that sodium in packaged bread has been cut by 13 percent, and added sugar in refrigerated flavored milk, popular among kids, has been cut by more than 17 percent.

How successful do you think the Let’s Move program has been?

From Pitchfork:

“Last night, “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” welcomed First Lady Michelle Obama, who talked about the listening habits of the First Family. Obviously, they’re all into Beyoncé, but she also noted that Sasha and Malia are Frank Ocean fans (via Consequence of Sound).

And First Lady Michelle Obama is okay with that?

Okay, so what’s the big deal about Sasha and Malia listening to Frank Ocean? Nothing actually. Despite thinking he was hyped for the wrong reasons, I like Frank Ocean, and I particularly appreciate the way in which he maneuvers in and out of traditional R&B to create a somewhat different sound than what’s out today. However, Ocean is not what I typically think of as a young adult-friendly artist, and especially not safe for the daughters of the first black president. While Ocean has a way with words, his words do mostly revolve around excess, sex, wholehearted love, and drugs. For instance, “Pilot Jones” may be cleverly prosed, but it also speaks rather bluntly about being in a relationship with a strung-out woman. Another example is “Pyramids,” which starts out painting a beautiful picture of Queen Cleopatra, the last pharaoh of Ancient Egypt, but after about three minutes, morphs into a slow whine about a much different Cleopatra, who it seems works at an actual club called the Pyramids. So yeah, while there are some musical differences between Frank Ocean and the rest of his R&B contemporaries, clearly, in some ways they are the same.

So don’t nobody go think I’m saying that Ocean is setting a bad example to the youth of our generation. To the contrary, I think children can learn from his use of metaphors and imagery. However, can someone explain to me how did Frank Ocean get passed White House clearance to be deemed safe enough to mention in a national interview? I’m thinking that some of his themes alone would be enough fodder for some crazed Republican to claim that the Obamas were secretly trying to corrupt the mind of the nation’s children. Also, I just can’t imagine the Obama girls jamming to the following: “Novacane Baby, Baby/Novacane baby I want you/F**k me good, f**k me long, f**k me numb/Love me now when I’m gone love me none/Love me none, love me none/Numb numb, numb numb…”

That song, if you quite haven’t figured it out yet, is called “Novacane” and it is about falling in love (OR, not being able to) with an Adult Video star, who also wants to be a dentist. Although I like the song, I’m sure that there is some metaphorical deeper meaning that I have not fully understood. But the song is pretty graphic in content. And since the late ’80s, similar themed songs, particularly those coming from the hip-hop and R&B community, have faced scrutiny for graphic content and themes, many of which are similar to this Ocean track. Most particularly, both genres of music have been blamed for some pretty damning stuff in the black community – from the over-sexualization of our young black girls to even the mass incarceration of young black men. So I wonder how does the First Family reconcile with the girls’ taste in music and the sexual themes and messages, which might exist in a song?

Well, according to an article in Glamour, President Obama once stated the following about Malia:

“You know, we actually don’t constrain what she listens to. We expect her to show some good judgment. She listens to my iPod and has gotten hip to stuff that was made well before she was born like Motown, jazz, classic rock. There’s a whole bunch of stuff that she’s picking up on. We actually share tastes in hip-hop and rap music but we don’t listen to it together, because some of the language in there would embarrass me—at least while I’m listening to it with her. Folks like Jay-Z, Nas, we both like them, but when it comes on and I’m sitting with her and Sasha, then I fast-forward because it would make me blush…. It’s interesting, both Malia and Sasha, they’re very much up on pop culture, but what I’m pleased to see is that they’re interested in making culture too. They both play the piano, and Sasha’s dancing, and Malia’s interested in filmmaking.”

I don’t think that President Obama, the First Lady, and more specifically Sasha and Malia’s open adulation of Frank Ocean – or any other Hip-Hop or R&B musician- sends the wrong messages. Heck, I’m not sure it sends out any message other than stating that the kids have pretty decent taste in music. And clearly we are talking about the Obama girls and there is no doubt that they are getting the best education and guidance that being the children of a president and first lady of the United States can afford them. However, if rap music and sexually explicit R&B does not mean that one is destined to be anti-social and basically a degenerate to society, as in the case of the Obama girls, perhaps we might be overstating its importance or relevance in addressing the problems in our community?

Getty Images

Where were you the night First Lady Michelle Obama broke out into the dougie on national television?

On Friday night, Michelle Obama took to the talk show scene when she made her first appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. She was there to promote her “Let’s Move” initiative and before they sat down to talk, Mrs. Obama and Fallon (as a woman) performed a nifty number described as “The Evolution of Mom Dancing.” The dances ranged from “The Hip Bump to the “Just the hands part of the Single Ladies Dance” and finally, “the Dougie,” which “Mama Fallon” sat out because it was a bit too advanced for “her.”

After the dance performance, Mrs. Obama sat down with Fallon to discuss the strides they’ve made with the “Let’s Move” initiative, including Wal-Mart lowering prices on fruits and vegetables as well as the obesity rate of children in Mississippi being lowered by 13 percent since “Let’s Move” kicked off three years ago.

While Jimmy Fallon shared with Mrs. Obama his wishes to see a Clinton/Obama (Michelle, that is) presidential ticket in 2016, the First Lady said she has her own plans: to possibly take over as host of Jay Leno’s show whenever he decided it was time to retire.

For whatever some may think of President Obama, you’ve got to work really hard to dislike the First Lady – she’s just so likeable!

Check out “The Evolution of Mom Dancing” below!