Live from Jimmy Fallon’s home! Late-night hosts adapt to coronavirus reality
It appears coronavirus prevention measures have forced almost everyone to work from home — even late-night TV hosts.
Because the pandemic shut down production on their respective programs, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Trevor Noah, Stephen Colbert and Conan O’Brien all filmed material from the safety of their homes on Tuesday in an effort to keep themselves busy and uplift spirits.
“Hey, guys. This is Jimmy Fallon, and this is the ‘Tonight Show: Home Edition,’ I guess you could call it,” Fallon said, opening his video with some new “Tonight Show” key art drawn by his daughter with a marker. (Hence the adorable misspelling of “Starring.”)
“We really don’t know what this is,” he added. “But I wanted to put something out there for you guys so that we can just have some levity in these bizarre times.”
“I hope you and your family and friends are as well as can be as expected in our new post-apocalyptic world,” Kimmel said. “We are not on live this week for obvious reasons, but since I have nothing to do — the fact that you’re watching this makes me assume that you have nothing to do — I’m going to shoot a mini-monologue every day until we get back, from my house, where I am currently incarcerated.”
Not surprisingly, much of Tuesday’s take-home jokes centered on the nationwide coronavirus shut-in, with Fallon and Kimmel struggling to stay sane while self-isolating with their kids.
The former was actually forced to pause shooting multiple times as his daughter continued to demand his attention, while his wife and “camera operator” giggled off-screen.
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“With classes canceled around the country, lots of people are home-schooling their kids,” Fallon said. “I’m home-schooling my kids, and it’s working out pretty well. In fact, my kids have already learned a valuable lesson: Their dad is an idiot. Seriously, after about 15 minutes, my kids said, ‘We’re transferring to Mom’s class.’”
“You learn a lot about yourself when you’re isolated at home,” Kimmel joked. “For instance, I learned that I have two young children, which was really something to find out. Thank God for television. My blood type right now is Disney positive. ... We’ve watched ‘Frozen 2’ more times than the animators that drew it have watched ‘Frozen 2.’”
Meanwhile, Colbert addressed his audience — wearing a full suit — from a bubble-filled bathtub for “a very special social-distancing edition of ‘The Late Show,’ or as I now call it, ‘The Lather Show With Scrubbin’ Colbert.’”
“The big story tonight is all of you people. People all over America have hunkered down in their own houses to ride out the coronavirus,” Colbert began his monologue. “So get comfortable. Try to look on the bright side: You’re finally going to get a chance to binge-watch all that toilet paper you bought. And you better watch it, Jack. Because I am coming for it.”
On what appeared to be an iPhone selfie version of “The Daily Show,” Noah commented on how widespread closures were affecting the New York restaurant industry, which is now taking only delivery and pickup orders.
“I was thinking it would be cool if Broadway could also do delivery. That would be nice,” Noah quipped. “Like, if Lin-Manuel [Miranda] could send someone to your house to perform just a little bit of ‘Hamilton.’ Like, you order it on the app, and he comes, like, ‘Hi, you ordered ‘The Room Where it Happens?’”
And of course, all of the comics celebrated St. Patrick’s Day in their own self-quarantined ways. Filming a “Conan” segment from behind his kitchen sink, O’Brien demonstrated a not-CDC-recommended hand-washing tutorial, using Guinness beer and Lucky Charms cereal as soap and water before deciding, “You know what? It’s too stupid. It’s just too stupid.”
In his living room, Fallon laid out an Irish feast, complete with his own bottle of Guinness, soda bread and Kerrygold butter, before performing an original acoustic tune called “St. Patrick’s Day Quarantine.”
“Kiss me, I’m Irish / But stay 6 feet away / ‘Cause no one wants to get a virus on St. Patty’s Day,” he sang.
You can tune in to YouTube in the coming days for more homegrown late-night content, courtesy of multiple hosts who promised to post videos throughout the week.
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