April Fool’s was, thankfully, a little more lighthearted this year as it had been in the past few, with many people coming out to play some harmless and funny pranks on one another. Or, for those with an audience, pulling pranks on them instead.
Like late-night talk show hosts Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel , whose prank required traveling across the country for both parties. It was ambitious, but they executed it perfectly to completely unsuspecting audiences.
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Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon teamed up this April Fool’s Day.
In a cross-country move, the two late-night Jimmy hosts pulled a legendary April Fool’s Day prank by swapping shows.
Jimmy Kimmel traveled east to New York City to host The Tonight Show , while Jimmy Fallon took to the west to host Jimmy Kimmel Live! in Hollywood.
Kimmel strut out confidently to do Fallon’s usual intro, even saying his name was Jimmy Fallon.
He launched right into the opening monologue, not even giving the audience time to process what was going on, only saying it was “freaky Friday tonight”.
He went on to make jokes about Mike Pence, Fox News, Will Smith, and then part-way through he acknowledged it’s April Fool’s and gets a cheer out of the crowd.
And Fallon did the same, walking out like nothing was amiss.
“Hi, I’m Jimmy,” was his humble introduction, and when met with more cheers, he said, “Please, please, please, settle down, you’re going to offend the other Jimmy.”
He acknowledged the date right away, saying that being in Kimmel’s studio felt “really strange, like someone opened the late-night multiverse.”
They had apparently been planning this swap since April of 2020.
They hadn’t told anyone, even most of the crew had no idea until the day it was happening, as acknowledged by Jimmy Fallon’s in-house band, The Roots.
“Jimmy — a big chunk of your audience almost left when I walked out. I saw sadness,” Kimmel said.
They did the standard walk out to the usual hosts’ introductions, and while both audiences were confused, went right into the monologues.
Fallon said to Kimmel, “For the first time tonight I got a great sitting ovation, It was unbelievable.”
When Fallon asked if Kimmel liked the New York studio, Kimmel replied, “Not really.” Fallon immediately started laughing as Kimmel continued, “Yeah, no. It’s beautiful. It’s absolutely beautiful. It makes me realize what a dump our place is.”
The two shows shared the same musical guest, at least.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers were on both shows promoting their new album, “Unlimited Love”.
All in all, it was an incredible joke to pull, and one that even the ones pulling are shocked they got away with, as Fallon said, “I love that we did this. I can’t believe we pulled it off. We did it. We pulled it off.”
h/t: The Wrap
