The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon is seeing a change. Mason Steinberg (Chrissy’s Court), who served as head writer for about a year, will be departing the show and handing over the reins to A.D Miles (Arrested Development, Wet Hot American Summer), who will return to The Tonight Show to fill in the spot. Miles is a familiar face to The Tonight Show as he was one of the first head writers when it transitioned from Jay Leno (Last Man Standing) to Jimmy Fallon (Saturday Night Live).
Miles served as head writer for Late Night back in 2009 up until 2014. Once The Tonight Show switched from Leno to Fallon, Miles became head writer there until 2016. He continued writing late-night television until he departed to work on other projects such as Gong Show and writing for the last season of Arrested Development.
Not only did Miles write for the show, but he made some appearances as well on-camera sketches such as “Ew!” and “Ragtime Gals” and also been the voice of the announcer for Password on NBC, which Fallon has produced.
This switch of head writers follows the news of Fallon allegedly creating toxic environment in the workplace of The Tonight Show. Following the bombshell Rolling Stone article that released the news, Fallon apologized to his staff saying, “It’s embarrassing and I feel so bad. Sorry if I embarrassed you and your family and friends,” Fallon said during a meeting with the show’s staff. “I feel so bad I can’t even tell you.”
The show has cycled through show-runners almost yearly, thus creating a lack of leadership. It is unknown if the departure of Stieinber is related to the allegations of the toxic work environment.
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon is on the air on weeknights at 11:35 pm EST on NBC.