The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon 12/7 Recap

This looks to be a big week for Fallon, as he hopes to end 2015 on a high note. There are 10 more shows until he goes on holiday break. This week includes big guests like Will Smith and Chris Hemsworth. Monday started the week off strong with a game of Pictonary with Ron Howard and Claire Danes. Here’s the full show recap.

Monologue

Holiday jokes are in full swing on The Tonight Show. It’s the second night of Hanukkah, so that’s the perfect time to mix in some jewish humor with his Irish Catholic brand. For instance, “Hanukkah has eight nights, while Christmas has three months starting at the end of September.” But the holidays haven’t stopped Fallon from ribbing the increasingly divided republican party. He pointed out new polls that show Trump still in the lead, and Jeb trailing with “three…not percent, three people.” For the popular culture bit of the monologue, Fallon congratulated Kim and Kanye West on their new baby son.

Joke of the monologue: “College football just announced its bowl game match ups. Clemson and Oklahoma will face off in the Orange Bowl and Stanford will face Iowa in the Rose Bowl. While DeVry will once again face the University of Phoenix online in the sweatpants bowl.”

To the Desk

Fallon was sporting a new bandage on his left hand tonight. I thought it was leftover from his recent fall, but it runs out it’s for a planned surgery. The surgery is to give him feeling back in his ring finger that was damaged in his ring avulsion accident. While Fallon was able to keep his finger, which is rare for that type of injury, he’s left with no feeling in that finger or the pinky. It turns out that many years ago he did a bit on the Emmys, which involved a planned fall on his elbow. Well that fall chipped a part of his elbow that caused the nerve to be blocked to his recently injured finger. Jimmy Fallon is either incredibly unlucky, clumsy or just very devoted to his craft of physical comedy. So the bandage on his hand was from the surgery to give him feeling back to his finger.

Hooray! Tariq and Questlove were nominated for a Grammy for their work on the hit broadway musical Hamilton. Big congrats to them!

12 Days of Christmas Sweaters

Fallon continues his tradition of 12 Days of Christmas Sweaters where he unveils a new hideous Christmas sweater during each show leading up to Christmas and gives it to an audience member. This is his third episode of the season showing off a new Christmas sweater. It’s like his own little advent calendar. After the commercial break, it was revealed that the woman who jumped up to claim the sweater wasn’t in the seat that was called, she just thought she was! The Tonight Show is at its funniest when its genuine, whether it’s celebrities being genuine with a game being played or Fallon riffing during a segment that didn’t go exactly according to plan. This was a hilarious moment in the show.

The Guests

Claire Danes

Claire Danes showed up on the Tonight show to promote Homeland, but she spent most of the interview talking about her personal life, which is always a plus. She recently moved back to New York, but she’s waiting for her place to be renovated, which is taking longer than usual. Jimmy was able to commiserate since he’s apparently going through the same thing. Clair and her husband Hugh Dancy (Hannibal) have a three year old, so they talked about Christmas time with the Dancy family who are British.

Eventually the conversation got to Homeland. I’m not a Homeland watcher, so the interview was sort of lost on me. I should probably start, since everyone always talks about it.

Pictionary

Pictionary is one of my favorite bits on The Tonight Show. Like I said earlier, Fallon is at his best when the show is genuine, and Pictionary usually shows an honest look at Hollywood celebs. Plus, it’s great to see who is totally horrible at the game. Tonight’s game was between Fallon and Danes vs. Higgins and Ron Howard. Ron Howard has to be amazing at this game, right? It turns out he’s not! Claire Danes on the other hand was a ringer. Ron Howard couldn’t draw a periscope, but Danes was able to draw the phrase “You’re Fired.” They destroyed Higgins and Howard. Check it out below.

Ron Howard

I love when the guest comes out talking about the game they just played. Ron said he was going to get Pictionary and practice for the next time he comes on. Fallon asked Ron about the hilarious story in which he spoiled the news by tweeting that Chris Pratt and his daughter Bryce Dallas Howard were going to costar in Jurassic World together. The news was supposed to be kept under wraps at that time. As Fallon puts it, it’s such a “dad move.”

Ron was there to promote his new movie In the Heart of the Sea starring Chris Hemsworth. It’s nice to have a director on a talk show to talk about his craft. He tells a story of when he directed How the Grinch Stole Christmas with Jim Carey. Carey always hated the makeup and hair that he had to wear throughout the shoot. So Howard showed up early one day to get the same makeup done to him and he spent the day directing in full Grinch makeup so he could share in the suffering with his star. In the Heart of the Sea looks exhilarating.

Monday’s show started the week off on a high note. I can’t wait to see what Hemsworth has planned for Thursday and then Will Smith on Friday. Stay tuned!

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