Stream It Or Skip It? ‘That’s My Jam’ On NBC, Where Jimmy Fallon And Celebrity Friends Play Music-Related Games

Jimmy Fallon’s signature as a late-night host (which he’s been doing for 12 years between his two shows!) is where he gets his guests to play games. They’re fun, of course, but it also shows the guests at their least guarded. It’s why his games have made for good spin-off series, like Lip Sync Battle, so why not group some of his most popular music-based games into a show of its own?

THAT’S MY JAM: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Jimmy Fallon stands in front of the “Jam Band” that will provide the live music for That’s My Jam. For some reason, there’s a stuffed polar bear standing behind the band.

The Gist: In That’s My Jam, Fallon hosts a game night of sorts, where four celebrities, split into two teams of two, compete in music-related games that gained popularity on The Tonight Show.

In the sneak preview episode (the series settles into its regular Monday timeslot on January 3), the celebrity contestants are the coaches on The Voice — Blake Shelton and Ariana Grande on one team, Kelly Clarkson and John Legend on the other. On the massive stage, the four super-competitive coaches compete for charity and the ultimate prize: Silver boom box trophies emblazoned with the show’s name.

The games they play: “Perfect Mashup”, where the lyrics of one song are paired with the melody of another, and the first to ring in with a mashed-up song title of the two songs wins the points; “The Vinyl Countdown”, where one team member gets the name of a band and they have to get the other to guess the band without using their name; “Air Guitar”, where Jimmy blasts air into the bewigged faces of teams that get trivia questions wrong, or the other team if the question is answered correctly; “Wheel of Impossible Karaoke”, where contestants spin a wheel that gives them various live karaoke challenges; and “Slay It, Don’t Spray It”, where the “Doom Box” sprays one of the teams with water if they can’t complete missing lyrics to selected songs.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Ellen’s Game of Games mashed up with Fallon’s Tonight Show musical games. There are also some elements of Family Game Fight mixed in.

Our Take: We were all fans of Fallon’s games on Late Night and The Tonight Show before 2016 (when he tousled Donald Trump’s hair and people switched en masse to Stephen Colbert), mainly because it showed celebrities in a relaxed mode where their defenses were down and their competitive natures came out. So it stands to reason that a show full of celebrities doing these games would work. It worked for Lip Sync Battle, which ran for five seasons.

Of course, it depends on the celebrities participating; Fallon and company were smart to have The Voice coaches on the first episode, and that’s not just due to the fact that the singing competition airs earlier that night. The coaches have amazing chemistry with each other after months (years, in the case of everyone but Grande) working together, and they’re all competitive on their show to begin with. So seeing Shelton make fun of the show, Clarkson get super into every game, and Grande apologize for being too young to know some of the trivia or songs was really entertaining to watch.

It also helps that the games lean into the fact that all four contestants have great voices (yes, even Blake, if you like country). During the Wheel of Impossible Karaoke, Clarkson and Grande were trading verses from various songs done by pop divas. You know both can handle it — Kelly does “Kellyoke” on her talk show, for heaven’s sake — and they both knocked it out of the park.

So That’s My Jam is less game show than just a variety show with some games mixed in. If you see it that way, the idea that there are no “civilian” contestants that might actually have real life-changing money at stake won’t be as critical to you. But if any of the teams have duds — something that Fallon and his producers are usually good at sussing out — that will drag a particular episode down.

Parting Shot: Blake “spontaneously” shoves Jimmy into the “doom box” in order for him to get experience getting sprayed in the face.

Sleeper Star: Whoever voices the “doom box” is funny. Let’s hope it’s Questlove or someone similar.

Most Pilot-y Line: Fallon fails to tell us what charity or charities the celebrities are playing for or what those charities get (we assume the charities get money no matter what the outcome is).

Our Call: STREAM IT. While Fallon himself could take his “kid in a candy store” excitement down a half a notch, That’s My Jam is a fun diversion that shows his celebrity friends at their least guarded. And the music is pretty good, too.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream That's My Jam On NBC.com