As Memorial Day weekend approaches, with its beer, burgers and parades, Jimmy Fallon is teaching Aussie Hugh Jackman the holiday's all-American ropes on "The Tonight Show." The actor and the late-night host prepared by engaging in a race of the sort you probably won't see in your neighborhood this weekend.
Fallon and Jackman sat on drink coolers attached to motorized scooters while sucking down brews from beer helmets, and then raced each other through an obstacle course of summer-weekend stereotypes.
"What's more American than beating an Australian in a good old-fashioned cooler-scooter race?" Fallon asked. Beer cooler scooters, he said are "going to be the transportation of the future, you guys. We'll all be driving them in five years."
The race course circled around a keg sporting balloons, and then straight through the "Tonight Show Memorial Day parade," which included a baton twirler, an old man contemplating crossing the street, a barfing boy who's eaten too much candy, high-fiving frat boys, a dad flipping burgers, and, for some reason, a giant panda.
"Since safety is sexy, we'll be wearing these beer helmets, complete with ice-cold beers," Fallon said.
Despite Fallon's American pride, Jackman crossed the finish line first, dodging the old man's walker and showers of vomit from the candy-filled kid. God bless America — and Australia too.
"The Tonight Show" airs weeknights at 11:35 on NBC. Jackman's "X-Men: Days of Future Past" opens in theaters on Friday.
Follow Gael Fashingbauer Cooper on Google+.