Hosting an awards show is always a thankless gig. If it goes well, hardly anyone remembers, but if it goes poorly the host will be trying to live it down for the rest of his (unfortunately it’s almost always a dude) career. Just ask David Letterman what he thinks of that Uma/Oprah joke.

Pretty soon, Jimmy Fallon will be either the goat or the glory of Hollywood. He has been tapped as host of the 2017 Golden Globes, traditionally held in January at the start of awards season.

Fallon is a very interesting choice for the ceremony, which has only been hosted by three people in the past seven years. First there was the era of Ricky Gervais, from 2010 to 2012, where he would stand at the podium with a beer and pretend that he was going to insult everyone there but really just talk about how outrageous he was going to be without really doing anything too provocative. God, that shtick got old. Then Tina Fey and Amy Poehler graced the podium from 2013 to 2015, ribbing the establishment good-naturedly while giving the ceremony an undeniable air of cool. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association asked Gervais back in 2016, but I’m giddy that his reign is at an end.

Fallon promises to be a totally different kind of host. As the steward of The Tonight Show, he’s not known for telling jokes in the same way that Gervais or Fey and Poehler are. Instead his most resonant bits are ones of collaboration, when he brings out the best in other celebrities and gets them to engage in wacky games or silly stunts. Also, his humor doesn’t have the sardonic edge of the previous hosts. Fallon has the temperament of a labrador retriever: always happy to be there, excited for anything that comes his way, and just dying for someone to scratch his belly. I can’t imagine him doing a joke that is even remotely critical (and which would possibly piss off someone he needs as a guest for his day job).

The only previous awards show hosting gig we have to judge Fallon’s performance is his 2010 spin at the Emmys. He got good notices for shepherding a tight show, which kicked off with a well-received package where he and a bunch of other television celebrities (Betty White, Tina Fey, Jon Hamm, Jane Lynch) did a parody of Glee and sang Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run. This is classic Fallon, getting everyone else in on the plan and being happy to give the best lines up to his collaborators.

Hosting the Globes is very different from the Emmys or Oscars, however. It’s a much more tight evening, doling out awards in both movies and television mostly one after the other without much room for comedy bits or other crazy gags. Hosts are mostly there to do a short monologue and maybe an occasional line or two introducing the stars handing out the trophies. This doesn’t really play to Fallon’s strengths, but I can’t think of one occasion where the seasoned host has really disappointed. And if worse comes to worst, his spirit of teamwork and friendship with former SNL co-stars Fey and Poehler might just get the audience favorites back on the big stage.