New Golden Globes host Jimmy Fallon starts with Donald Trump quip

By Jill Serjeant

(Reuters) – Comedian Jimmy Fallon, host of NBC’s “The Tonight Show,” was chosen on Tuesday to host the 2017 Golden Globe Awards for film and television, and quickly gave fans a hint of what to expect.

Fallon, 41, will be hosting the January ceremony for the first time. He follows acerbic British comedian Ricky Gervais, who took the reins for the fourth time earlier this year, and comedians Tina Fey and Amy Poehler who did the honors from 2013-2015.

The 2017 ceremony takes place on Jan. 8 in Beverly Hills and will be broadcast live on NBC television, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which organizes the awards, said in a statement.

Fallon said on Twitter he was excited to be hosting the event, one of the biggest stops in Hollywood’s long awards season.

“And I’m really looking forward to spending time with the Hollywood Foreign Press before Donald Trump has them all deported,” he quipped, in a dig at the Republican presidential contender’s pledges to crack down on immigration if elected in November.

Fallon, a former cast member of TV sketch show “Saturday Night Live,” took over NBC’s flagship late night talk show in 2014, injecting the format with games and stunts. “The Tonight Show” is currently the most-watched of the U.S. late night TV talk shows.

NBC Entertainment Chairman Robert Greenblatt said Fallon was a great fit for the Golden Globes.

“This is the most spontaneous and uninhibited award show on television, and Jimmy’s playful, disarming comedic brilliance makes him the ideal host to enhance and elevate the sense of fun and irreverence,” Greenblatt said in a statement.

The Golden Globes ceremony, an informal and boozy dinner attended by hundreds of A-list stars, is one of the biggest in the Hollywood awards season that culminates with the Oscars in late February. Some 18.5 million Americans watched the three-hour show on television this year.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Chris Reese and Marguerita Choy)