The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon Recap

Fallon and company promised to have a show we wouldn’t want to miss on Tuesday. He sounded more excited about a future show than usual, but Jimmy said they had something special in store for us on Wednesday. Legendary musician Billy Joel stopped by and didn’t disappoint. Here’s the recap for Wednesday, 1/6.

Monologue

Jimmy went right for his political security blanket. He started with some jokes about Trump being a hoax created by the Chinese (recently, Trump said that of global warming). The joke was fallowed up with a condensed version of an hour-long Bernie Sanders speech. The clip borrowed a page from Jimmy Kimmel’s handbook by using unnecessary censorship to make it look like Sanders was saying “F*** Wall Street and f*** big banks.” Fallon double downed on Trump jokes by mentioning British Parliament met to decide whether to ban Donald Trump from entering the country. The joke was ended with a quip about British soldier hats looking similar to Trump’s hair. Jimmy put a bit together to show how the potentially proposed 10,000 Twitter character limit would be a horrible idea. He showed three fictional tweets that rambled on. Solid bit. He ended the monologue with his classic Sandler impression. It was a strong mid-week monologue.

Joke of the monologue: “Everyone is getting into their New Year’s Resolutions. Even Mark Zuckerberg posted that he wants to run 365 miles in 2016. Zuckerberg just had a baby and is going to get into running, so the time to unfriend him is NOW.”

To the Desk

The praise for Billy Joel started early on Wednesday’s episode. Jimmy even stood up at his desk just when he mentioned that Joel was coming out.

Tonight Show Superlatives

The NFL playoffs start this week, so in a show of synergy that would make Jake Donoghey proud Jimmy built a bit that shows off players from the game to be televised on NBC. Superlatives shows pictures of players and makes a crack about their appearance. It’s a pretty shallow visual segment, but one that’s always good for a few laughs.

More from Tonight Show

The Guests

Billy Joel

Billy Joel has a lot to be happy about. He has a wife and five month old, a 30-year-old daughter, and a monthly show at Madison Square Garden that sells out regularly. The crowd gave him a long standing ovation. Jimmy kicked off conversation about family. Billy says when he hangs out with him daughter, they just sit around, play the piano and sing. Jimmy also hung out with his father and sang. They talked about the same story as the last time Joel was on about Jimmy and his dad hanging out with Joel backstage before one of his concerts. Joel was late to the stage because the three of them were singing doo-wop songs.

Eventually the conversation went to promote Joel’s upcoming show at Madison Square Garden. Joel actually told Jimmy he wants him to come on stage to perform a duet for Thursday’s show. It seemed like Jimmy was caught off guard with the invitation. He said he’ll think about what they can do before they go on stage. So that’s a cool treat for everyone with tickets to Thursday’s show!

The show returned from break with Fallon and Joel sitting on a piano bench infant of where The Roots play. Jimmy brought up a Mets tradition where the stadium plays Piano Man during the eight inning. Joel was at that game, so Jimmy showed the clip of Joel in a luxury box enjoy the site of seeing the whole stadium sing his song. But the piano was actually there for a reason. Joel and Fallon put on a little impromptu concert of the people in the 30 Rock theater. Joel, Fallon and the Roots sang Beast of Burden by The Rolling Stones. Check out the fun performance below.

J.K. Simmons

Most people don’t know that Simmons is a talented musician, so it’s cool that he was a part of this highly musical episode. He’s a trained vocalist and used to be a part of a band. Jimmy congratulated him on his Academy Award for his winning performance in Whiplash. Jimmy was particularly impressed by his moving acceptance speech. Fallon stuck with the topic of family to talk about J.K. Simmons’ wife, which he met when he was on stage performing in Peter Pan. Simmons was in attendance to promote his work in Kung Fu Panda 3. Simmons is the voice of the villain. The interview ended with a clip from the movie. I wish they would’ve had time to squeeze in a game with Simmons. He seems like such a great guy.

More Billy Joel

The episode concluded with a performance by Billy Joel. He sang Scenes From an Italian Restaurant, which apparently he’s never performed on television. It’s a Billy Joel performance, so, yeah, it was terrific.

Next: The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon 1/5 Recap

Check back tomorrow for the recap of Thursday’s show when Jimmy welcomes Mark Ruffalo and Kendrick Lamar.

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The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon Recap – 1/6

By Max Parker | Jan 7, 2016