Would You Hire Jimmy Fallon Based On This Audition?

By: Sara

Jimmy Fallon is on top of the world right now, but once, long ago, he was just a struggling comedian trying to break into showbiz. Lucky for us, there is footage of those awkward days and that footage has made its way to YouTube. Enjoy 24-year-old Fallon back in 1998 as he auditions for "Saturday Night Live."

Jimmy jumps right in with some solid work. His impressions of John Travolta, Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Adam Sandler (the only impression to make Lorne Michaels laugh), and Gilbert Gottfried are right on target. Things start to go off the rails a bit when he switches into his Collin Quin impression and then does a sketch about a British talk show. But Fallon gets back on track when he grabs his guitar and goes into his musical impressions like U2 and the Wallflowers. The SNL casting agents liked what they saw and hired Jimmy Fallon to start working on the next season.

Who knew that this skinny kid would someday be so popular he would convince the president to slow jam the news?