Jimmy Fallon Is Here For A Good Time (And A Long Time)
Jimmy Fallon needs to shave his chest.
It’s 11 a.m. on a Thursday, and The Tonight Show host is getting ready to make himself look like a 15-year-old girl by way of a shaved torso and a tube top. It’s all in the service of an SNL-style sketch with this evening’s musical guest, the pop singer Ariana Grande.
In the sketch, which Fallon will tape around 3 p.m. and which will air sometime in the show’s second block, he plays a snotty, nasal-voiced teenager hosting a Wayne’s World-esque show from her parents’ basement, talking to Grande (who, it should be said, looks legitimately and a little uncomfortably like a 15-year-old-girl) about the absurdities of Instagram, pop music and parents. On its surface, the show-within-a-show looks tailor-made to play up the strengths of the guest. The sketch hinges on a brief sing-off, in which Fallon’s teenage alter-ego challenges — and is handily beaten by — Grande’s. It’s a rare candid, un-auto-tuned moment for the singer, one that makes her look both humble and supremely talented.
But really, the sketch is built for Fallon. Somewhere around the halfway mark, he begins to lose character, and has every intention of dragging Grande with him. When Grande’s character confesses to a girl-crush on Richard Dreyfuss, that’s it. They’re both cracking up — not, presumably, at the joke, which is only half-funny, but at the preposterousness of the situation. Look at them: two of the most famous people in the world right now, sitting on a soundstage couch in pigtails and sequins, drinking green smoothies and making fun of themselves, their core audiences and the whole elaborate star system of which they’re not just a part, but on top.
If you’re Jimmy Fallon, what’s not to laugh about?
