Microdramas have officially hit the “late-night parody” stage of their life cycle.
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon has released its own mock microdrama starring actual microdrama leading man Kasey Esser. Called Who Billionaire? Me Billionaire, the 10-episode series taps Esser and TikToker Delaney Rowe as an upper-crust married couple who are celebrating the recent engagement of their friends, played by Fallon and Tonight Show writer Rose Kelso.
We know that’s the plot because, in true spoof fashion, it spends its first 15 seconds having Esser spout off a deluge of exposition that totally, definitely mimics how real people talk to each other.
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Who Billionaire? Me Billionaire‘s drama stems from Esser’s character inviting a random stranger over to crash the engagement soiree. But, as Esser tells us, he just had to, because the mysterious, heroic stranger swooped in and saved him from having to pump gas into his Rolls Royce all by himself.
The first episode ends on a doorbell-ring cliffhanger, but we’ll spoil a little bit: That mysterious stranger is played by none other than John Stamos, rounding out the cast with some solid 90s sitcom flair.
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There’s also some drama offscreen here, too. Fallon dropped Who Billionaire? Me Billionaire just a couple days after The Daily Show announced plans to produce late-night’s first microseries, The Daily Show Presents: Two Billionaires Fight to Dominate the Country…And My Heart!
As you can probably tell from the title alone, The Daily Show‘s microseries is also a parody, but it leans even further into satire; its main character is “Alonka,” daughter of the United States’ octogenarian and increasingly absent president. In the void left by his lack of leadership, tech billionaires “Egon Husk” and “Jiff Davos” decide to build an AI president to replace him–and end up growing close to “Alonka” in the process.
You can make your own inferences about which public officials The Daily Show might be spoofing, but it’s clear Fallon’s microseries is staying on the lighter side. Between the insta exposition dump, the over-the-top characterizations, the hyperdramatic music and camera zooms, and the carefully executed cliffhangers, Who Billionaire? Me Billionaire is targeting enjoyers of top-viewed microseries categories like romance.
It has help maintaining that vibe from Esser, who’s starred in more than 50 microseries, including Fated to My Forbidden Alpha, Brave New Beginning with My Fire Captain, The Christmas Contract: Mafia Stand-In Bride, and Love Under Fire.
What’s really interesting here is the amount of effort Fallon and The Daily Show are putting into their vertical productions. Late-night TV has thrived on skits for decades, but making a multi-episode series (and distributing it across socials over the course of a couple weeks) is a lot more work than a five-minute sketch that airs once. But it also might result in more staying power, with the shows living on socials–and, as both late-night programs no doubt hope, maybe drawing in an ongoing audience primed for microdrama fandom.
Fallon and The Daily Show‘s microdramas may be knockoffs, but plenty of legacy entertainment entities are starting to take the format seriously–or, at least, they see moneymaking potential in a niche where smaller studios like ReelShort have already found audiences of tens of millions.
