Déjà vu strikes in the strangest places. For Brooks Allison ’11, it happened while he was under the bleachers at “The Tonight Show,” waiting for Jimmy Fallon to perform a song Allison had written for that night’s monologue.
It might seem like strange timing, but the wave of nostalgia made sense to Allison. He practically grew up in the athletic facilities at Roanoke College, where his father, Scott Allison ’79, was a longtime coach and director of athletics.
“Every time I've been under the seats at ‘The Tonight Show,’ it feels like I'm at Roanoke College running around under the bleachers in the Bast Center,” he said. “It is just the coolest, weirdest feeling being under there.”
As a kid in Salem, Allison delighted in making people laugh. He especially loved the intersection of comedy and music, so he was drawn to acts like Weird Al Yankovic and Tenacious D. He and his sister, Claire Allison ’13, often performed goofy songs and skits in the living room for their parents.
“I was always drawn to being funny and doing funny stuff, and I loved ‘Austin Powers’ and ‘Night at the Roxbury’ and that era of Saturday Night Live,” he said. “There wasn’t as much of an outlet for comedy growing up as there was for music, but comedy was always something I wanted to do.”
Allison says that his father also inspired him to go into the performing arts.
“Whether he was at soccer camp, giving pre-game speeches in the locker room, or at a conference or something, my dad was always comfortable talking to people,” he said. “I remember watching that and being so excited and inspired. I really attribute a lot of my love and desire and comfort in performing to my dad.”
When he landed at Roanoke College, where he was a business major, Allison joined the soccer team and played for his dad. But before long, he realized that he was ready to try something different. “I went into soul-search mode pretty early,” he said. He ended up quitting soccer and starting a band with friends.
“We started as a joke,” he said. “Our band was called Lots of Shrimp because our first show was at a frat house and they were like, ‘Come on by. There’s going to be beer and lots of shrimp.'”
Lots of Shrimp later became The Madrid Kids, a nod to his friend’s apartment, which was located above a Salem restaurant called Café Madrid. The band recorded some songs and performed at Alumni Weekend.
Allison wasn’t particularly inspired by his business classes, but he remembers one group project that sparked some joy. While making a presentation for a fictional product, he designed the book and recorded a jingle. He still remembers the professor, Kevin Baker, asking who made the jingle. “And they all pointed at me, and he was like ‘He’s got a career ahead of him’ and that has stuck with me in a cool way.”
Following graduation from Roanoke, Allison moved to the Big Apple and took improv classes at Upright Citizens Brigade, where he eventually became a house performer. When the pandemic hit and theaters closed, he ramped up production of online videos, including humorous remixes of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s daily COVID-19 briefings. He also got back into music, accepting a friend’s offer to play bass with a band called Slothrust. When the band went on tour with indie rock band Manchester Orchestra, Allison joined them.
“There wasn’t as much of an outlet for comedy growing up as there was for music, but comedy was always something I wanted to do.”
Brooks Allison '11
That’s what Allison was up to in 2022, when he received an email from a producer at “The Tonight Show.” The show was interested in having Allison on as a contestant in a skit called “Battle of the Short Songwriters,” where he wrote a funny winning song about being stuck on an elevator with Ed Sheeran. His favorite part was making Questlove laugh out loud.
Allison’s experience on “The Tonight Show” helped land him a comedy manager who remains his manager today. That led to a gig at Comedy Central digital, for which he made funny videos while returning to tour with Slothrust. The experience was fun, but he was beginning to wonder about his next step.
“I feel like as a performer or a writer or whatever in New York or L.A., there’s always a “what’s next” kind of feeling,” he said, “or how much longer is this going to last and what am I going to do next? I was just looking inward a bit.”
Within days of his soul searching, a DM landed in his Instagram inbox from the showrunner at “The Tonight Show.”
“He was like ‘Hey Brooks, we’re looking at bringing in a couple new writers for this circuit. What do you think?’ And I was just like, ‘WHAT?’ And by the next Monday, I was out of Comedy Central and working at Fallon.”
For the next three months, Allison employed his trademark blend of music and comedy to create such gems as a Tucker Carlson-FOX News break-up song and a song about busted March Madness brackets. Although Allison is not star-struck by Fallon, he admits that “making Jimmy Fallon laugh is like the best feeling ever.”
Allison has since weathered the writers’ strike and returned to “The Tonight Show.” He feels fortunate to have reached this career milestone, but he dreams of one day having his own one-hour streaming comedy special.
For now, he’s perfectly happy to stand under the bleachers and watch his ideas unfold on “The Tonight Show” stage. In those moments, he said, he will always be reminded of being a kid in Salem.
“That performing-for-my-parents thing has never ended,” he said, laughing. “I’m still that little kid sitting across from them in the living room.”