My Dream Is To Be Beaten To A Pulp On Live Television With A Comically Oversized Version Of Something
There seems to be a growing consensus today that my show, the Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, is an annoying show. Just last night, I overheard a group of young people at a bar remarking how the Tonight Show made them “want to punch Jimmy Fallon in the face.”
What people don’t seem to understand is that this is exactly the point. Yes, the show is infantile. Yes, the Tonight Show is like an unending adult sleepover. Yes the show is replete with comically oversized objects.
This is because my dream is that some day, someone—one of my guests, someone from the audience, maybe even one of the Roots—will beat me nearly to death on live national television with a comically oversized version of some everyday object.
I’ve come close a few times. Once, after defeating Matt Damon in a forty minute game of giant chess (it was edited for time), I caught a flash of violence in his eye. Would this be the moment that one of my guests finally picks up a five-foot-tall wooden chess piece and beats me senseless with it, live on national television?
Alas, no. Matt quickly regained his composure and emitted a nervous laugh instead.
Or what about the time I smacked Tom Cruise with an uncooked egg while playing a game of egg roulette? The moment the yoke burst open across his face, I could tell that he was pissed. Lying on the floor a few feet away, well within his field of vision, was a massive Lego piece I had placed there earlier. Would this be the moment when someone finally cracks and launches themselves at me with a comically oversized object?
No, not this time. Tom collected himself and then whacked me with one of his own regular-sized eggs instead.
Not Jamie Foxx, not Avril Lavigne—no one who passes through my studio seems to get the message of the show, which is: I want you to become so annoyed that you attack me with a hilariously oversized thing.
So I will tell everyone now: please know that nothing would bring me more joy than to be beaten to within an inch of my life by a really big version of an object. Thanks.
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