With Jimmy Fallon set to take over The Tonight Show in February, he’s bulking up his Late Night writing staff. The show’s hiring practices have come under scrutiny recently, with Deadline reporting the show’s submission process has caused someone to complain to the Writers Guild of America. Although it’s not uncommon in late night, Fallon’s writing submission is pretty substantial, asking for several written segments and monologue jokes. The WGA complaint is concerned with material from writing submissions ending up on the show, even if the writer is not actually hired.
Check out Fallon’s submission request below:
Below are guidelines for Late Night with Fallon sketch submissions:STEP 1: DESK PIECESApplicants should come up with 3 ideas for low-production desk pieces. We’re not looking for scripts for each of them, just a good title, a few sentences that describe the bit and a few examples of what the jokes would be.STEP 2: ADDITIONAL SKETCH IDEASWe’re looking for 3 ideas for in-studio character pieces, audience plants, games, or ideas for pre-taped shorts or television parodies. Again, this entails a few sentences that describe the bit and a few examples of what the jokes would be.STEP 3: ONE FULL SCRIPTChoose your favorite sketch idea from the steps above and write one full script for it.STEP 4: MONOLOGUE JOKESWe’d like to see 10 monologue jokes to get a sense of joke writing style.STEP 5: MINI FRANCHISESApplicants should then expand 1 or 2 monologue jokes into mini franchises. A mini franchise is a shortened version of a bit that has an opening graphic, a few jokes, and a closing graphic.See links below for recent examples of mini joke franchises:–Kim vs. Kim link–Superlatives link–Twitter Back & Forth linkSTEP 6: THANK YOU NOTESEach submission should include 10 Thank You Notes jokes.STEP 7: ON THE BRIGHT SIDEPlease include 10 jokes for “On The Bright Side,†one of our signature “joke bucket†bits.For reference, examples are below:The band Chumbawamba broke up.On the bright side, they just released an album of all their greatest hit.Chipotle has given Major League Baseball outfielder Bryce Harper free burritos for life.On the bright side, he already leads the league in runs.Carly Rae Jepsen is partnering with Coca-Cola to let her fans write her next song for her.On the bright side, the song is titled “Call Me Lazy.â€Once complete, all submission packets can be emailed to [email protected]