It’s not easy being a talk show host, especially when you’re following in the footsetps of someone great. As Conan O’Brien moves to the previous hour to become the host of the Tonight Show on June 1, that left Jimmy Fallon to take up the late night slot. The show beings at 12:35am, and his first show was a little rough around the edges, which is completely expected as he adjusts to his new role.

He did have an impressive guest list to start out as well, bringing in Justin Timberlake, Robert De Niro, and The Roots as his house band. It appears that audiences were curious as well, with the new host attracting the show’s highest rating on Monday in more than three years according to Nielsen’s preliminary estimates of households in the major media markets. That means about 35 percent better than the Late Night average and bumping up it’s household rating to 2.3 over 1.7. I don’t know what those mean, but TV Decoder tells me it’s good!

Fallon easily outstripped demand from it’s competitors like the Late Show with Craig Ferguson, who had Paris Hilton on his show that night. Fallon also edged out ahead of Jimmy Kimmel Live for the last half hour of Kimmel’s show, which begins at 12;05am. Not a bad start, but we’ll have to wait and see how the host’s staying power holds up as his performance is smoothed out.