Two of TV’s late-night greats are facing off in a battle that has nothing to do with ratings and everything to do with dough (no, not that kind of dough).
"The Tonight Show" host Jimmy Fallon and his late-night rival Jimmy Kimmel are going head-to-head and crust-to-crust in their quest to make the perfect pizza pie.
Fallon unwittingly kicked off the competition over the weekend, when, inspired by Stanley Tucci’s cooking in his new food series “Searching for Italy,” he tried to recreate the actor’s star dish on Instagram.
“He went to Naples in the first episode, and he made the best pizza I’ve ever seen,” Fallon said as he tried to make some vaguely pizza-shaped Neapolitan magic.
He had dough, a San Marzano tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, basil and high hopes — and as far as he was concerned, he nailed it, as evidenced by his home-kitchen victory dance.
But just three days later, a new challenger stepped up to follow in Tucci’s culinary footsteps.
“Hey, Jimmy, it’s Jimmy,” Kimmel said in his own video. “I saw your pizza-making video on Instagram, and it was pretty cute.”
But he also said, “I know Stanley Tucci. He’s a friend of mine. And you, my friend, are no Stanley Tucci. Let me show you how to make a pizza, OK?”
Kimmel mocked his television frenemy for using a rolling pin on the dough and cooking it in a “little waffle maker," while bragging about his Bianco DiNapoli tomato sauce and outdoor wood-fire pizza oven.
After taking one bite of his own creation, Kimmel declared it, “So much better than yours.”
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Fans of both men will have to take their words about the results, but Kimmel urged them to vote all the same — for a good cause.
“I cannot in good conscience stand by silently while @JimmyFallon makes ‘pizza’ - to vote for Fallon’s sad misshapen blob, make a donation of $5 to @NoKidHungry by texting FALLON to 877877,” he wrote in the caption that accompanied the video. “To vote for my beautiful pie, make a donation of $5 to @NoKidHungry by texting KIMMEL to 877877.”
Either way, as his hashtag suggested, the #LateNightWarsAreBack.