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The live studio audience at “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” gets to see a highlight reel before the show starts. “I'm so used to hearing it in the background, it's normal for me,” says Fallon. But once in a while someone reminds him how cool his job is. “I'll go into a dressing room and say hi to a guest and they go, ‘Dude, this is crazy, all the stuff you did.’ And I go, ‘I know, I know.’ And they go, ‘No, really though. Did you do a sketch with Bob Dylan?’" Yes, he did. "And, ‘Carol Burnett slapped you in a sketch?’” Yes, that happened too. Sometimes it's all a blur to the host. “So much happens in one week that I don't even kind of remember what we've done," Fallon says. The comedian continues to try new things, including costarring in "Password," producing a new Wordle game show with Savannah Guthrie set to debut next year, and launching the show’s first microdrama. (“Who Billionaire? Me Billionaire” had more than 22 million views in its first week.) All while he continues to have guests like Matt Damon, Tom Holland and Zendaya, Matthew McConaughey and Katseye on the show. (“All these young people walk around the office telling me what cool things are out there. I'm like, gosh, I would just feel so old if I didn't have them,” says Fallon, 51, with a laugh.) So who are some of Fallon’s most memorable guests? He spent a few minutes looking back with USA TODAY. Jimmy Kimmel Fallon and Kimmel – both members of Strike Force Five – pulled off a cross-network prank in 2022. “Jimmy and I switched shows on April Fool's Day. We asked the network the day before,” Fallon says.Correction: They didn’t really ask, they told the networks. “Because if we got them involved, they would have talked us out of it,” he says. “So we just did it and we swapped and it was cool.”Part of the fun was that he typically doesn’t see other late-night shows. “I don't watch the other shows and I don't think they watch me either, just because I don't want to steal anything,” he explains. “So Jimmy was here going, ‘So where is the band?’ He came in and he was making fun of my weights. He was like, ‘Why do you have all these weights everywhere? ... Do you lift weights before you go out in the show?’”Fallon, for his part, had to adjust to being much closer to Kimmel's studio audience. Kimmel's crew also gave him a spit cup: “I’m like, ‘Tobacco? What are you talking about?’” It was to spit out his gum.The pair, who often get called by each other’s names, recently spent a weekend fishing together. “He taught me how to fly fish,” he says. They were docking their boat when a couple walking hand-in-hand spotted them. “The wife tugs on her husband and goes, ‘That's Jimmy Fallon,’” he says, mimicking how she looked over her left shoulder, followed by the husband looking over his right shoulder. “Then he turns around and he goes, ‘That’s Jimmy Kimmel.’ And it’s like, ‘Gee, this is the greatest thing ever because they're both right.’” His dad Fallon’s father, James W. Fallon, technically wasn’t a guest, but the host will never forget how the Vietnam War veteran impacted his first show. “We had two rooms full of people because people were so excited that we were bringing the 'Tonight Show' back to New York. One room was all just people and executives that used to work with Johnny Carson and the family of Steve Allen. We had Jack Jack Paar's family. Sigourney Weaver was here because her dad invented the ‘Today’ show and the ‘Tonight Show.’ My parents were here, my teachers were here,” he recalls. After telling the audience a bit about what to expect, he went backstage and came out through the curtain for his opening monologue. “And I remember my dad heckled me. I had some joke about not graduating in high school, but look, I still get to host the 'Tonight Show' or something like that. It was a joke. I did graduate high school, but my dad yelled, ‘We paid a lot of money for that school!’ And I was like, 'Dude, is this really happening? Are you really yelling this? What are you doing, man? Your son is hosting.' Also, he didn't pay a lot of money. I went to a public school. But he got a giant laugh.” Any celeb with $100 Also on his opening night, “I had an idea where I say, ‘Hey, to my friend who bet me that I would never ever host the “Tonight Show,“ you owe me 100 bucks.’ And then one at a time everyone came out and put a $100 on my desk. Robert De Niro, Sarah Jessica Parker – Joan Rivers came back for the first time and she was crying, she hadn‘t been on the ‘Tonight Show‘ since Johnny [Carson]. It was cool – Kim Kardashian, Lady Gaga, Tina Fey, Joe Namath.” Former “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert was also there. “Colbert came and poured a bucket of pennies on me.” U2 was the show’s first musical guest, and Lorne Michaels, the legendary “Saturday Night Live“ producer who also produces “The Tonight Show,“ thought they should perform on the roof. “He’s like, ‘You should do it at dusk, New York is beautiful at dusk.’” Since the show tapes around 5 p.m., Fallon had to race from the studio audience to the roof to make it in time for sunset: “I’m running to get to the top of the building and pennies were falling out everywhere.” Bruce Springsteen Fallon pitched a sketch to the Boss, and asked him to wear a wig like his hair from the ‘70s. “He didn't want to wear a wig. But it was a funny bit. And everyone left the room and I go, ‘Do you want to try the wig?’ He brought his own glasses from his Born to Run tour. And he's like, ‘No, no, I don't want to wear a wig.’” But when everyone left the room, Springsteen came around. “He's like, "I'll try it." So I put a wig on [him]...and he was like, “Get a flop hat.“ He put the hat on with the glasses. It looked like Bruce from Born to Run. He walked out of the dressing room. His manager was in the room across the hall and they both kind of got emotional.” Later, Jon Landau, Springsteen‘s manager, told Fallon, “'It's so weird to see your client from 50 years ago or whatever. It‘s bizarre, Jimmy.’” President Barack Obama “We had Obama when he first was president. ‘Slow Jam the News’ was this bit we used to do where you make the news into a sexy R&B delivery. And at the end, I go, ‘If you don't mind Mr. President, can you say it like, ‘Oh yeah,’” Fallon says in his best Barry White voice. The president’s reply? “Nope.” Fallon persisted, “I go, 'Just try it.’ He goes, ‘No.’ He didn't want it sexualized.” Things changed by the time Obama returned to the show at the end of his second term. Fallon wrote a joke riffing on Rihanna’s famous lyrics, telling the president, “’You got to be like Rihanna and work, work, work, work, work.’ And he goes, ‘Yeah, it's perfect.’ He goes, ‘What can I do?’” and offered a sexier version. “I go, ‘Stop it. Stop it! You have a month left. Chill. Don't be funny now, man!’” he says, laughing. Will Ferrell and Fallon's former 'SNL' colleagues Who is most likely to make Fallon break? “Comedians,” he says. “Will Farrell always breaks me. Amy Poehler. Any of those improvise-y types. Amy and I played a game once where it was all written, but it was a trivia game where I would give clues and she would guess something that had nothing to do with the clues I'm giving her. And her delivery is funny and straight faced. Comedians with a straight face make me laugh.” Bradley Cooper Fallon had a reputation on “SNL“ for breaking the most, but sometimes his guests break first. “Bradley Cooper's the worst one,” he says. Things got so ridiculous, Fallon was worried there wouldn’t be enough usable footage for the show. "I kept trying to read [the script], and I think it's 25 minutes of us crying, laughing. Tears like a cartoon coming out of my head, like a Cathy cartoon. It's like, 'Oh my gosh, I want this to end.' But it was the most fun thing ever.” Nicole Kidman Fallon created a skit called Box of Lies, in which each person tries to convince the other person what is in a mystery box. So who was the best liar? “All the great actors are phenomenal liars. Nicole Kidman was fantastic. I believe anything she says,” he says. “Everyone's lied to me,” be it about the end of a Marvel movie or "Stranger Things." Sometimes he confronts them on it. “I’ll go, ‘Wait, but even backstage you didn't tell me?’ They're like, ‘I know.’ They're out of my league.” Keke Palmer The “I Love Boosters” star has been on the show several times, and Fallon has also collaborated with her on “Password,” where she is the host. “She’s incredible,” he says. “She is a joy to be around. Her thing is that we're both Virgos and that's why we get along — we just love working. But her work ethic is crazy.” And the one that got awayAfter hosting so many of the biggest names in Hollywood, are there any white whales Fallon has yet to land? "I wanted to have the Queen on the show," he says of the late monarch. "The Pope maybe could be fun. He's from Chicago. But I don't know how serious it gets or if he's allowed to do comedy." In other words, he might not be up for slow jamming the news.
