TODAY’s Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb paid a visit to primetime Tuesday night for an NBC News special on the coronavirus pandemic, and they were joined by a famous face from late night — and a member of his family, too.
“The Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon visited the duo via video call from quarantine to share what life’s like back home as he maintains the old motto “the show must go on.”
And he kicked off that glimpse of home life by sliding right into daughter Winnie’s homeschool space — literally.
Yes, the funnyman has the ability to take a shortcut from one story of his house to another from the comfort of his very own slide. And once he arrived at his destination, he asked his 6-year-old to show off her math assignment.
“What? Who are we calling?” the first-grader asked, suspicious of dad’s sudden interest.
“That’s Savannah and Hoda!” he said. “We watched them this morning. We watch them every day of our lives.”
And they’re used to watching Winnie, too, as are viewers of Fallon’s at-home programming during the pandemic. After all, she and her little sister, 5-year-old Franny, are a vital part of the production team! They have been lending a hand with graphics, sound effects and more.
“The feedback has been awesome,” the 45-year-old father said of the show's new format. “You know, I think it’s really changed everything for me. The interviews have been more intimate. I don’t know if you’ve felt that, but everyone’s at home, so there’s not really any pre-planned bits that someone’s going to do. You don’t have to make everyone go crazy laughing with the story. So, you just kind of tell stories from the heart … you can’t really do anything that fake. It’s really you, like, showing your real character.”
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And as for his character, he put it on display during the Tuesday night special by picking up an electric guitar and belting out a song he wrote just for the occasion.
“I clap for the nurses / When they walk by me / I love all the people / For staying inside, please,” he sang to the tune of The Paris Sisters’ 1961 hit, “I Love How You Love Me.” “I love Gov. Andrew Cuomo / On my TV screen / But darling most of all / I love Dr. Fauci.”
It was a fantastic one-time-only performance, but he’s saving his best material for Saturday night.
Fallon will join his fellow late-night leaders, Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert, for the “One World: Together at Home” concert, an event that will span networks and unite artists.
“It airs 8 p.m ET, 5 p.m. PT, and it is epic,” he promised. “This thing is going to be crazy. I’m talking Paul McCartney, Elton John, Keith Urban, Green Day, Eddie Vedder, Kacey Musgraves — like, you name it, they’re there. Lady Gaga, obviously, will kick off the show. It’s not a telethon.”
Instead, the ultimate goal of the “One World” event will be to celebrate and support health care workers and others on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic.