Zohran Mamdani Lands Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show Bit

by

https://youtube.com/watch?v=watch?v=M4IXOmk-efc

Jimmy Fallon’s jokes on The Tonight Show are often quick, mildly funny observations about current events, and a joke he told on December 9th perfectly illustrates this style. The joke – “It was so cold in New York City this morning, walking to work, I saw a Wall Street stockbroker spooning with Zohran Mamdani” – is delivered with a rhythm that’s immediately followed by another joke, leaving little time for the audience to truly react. It’s so typical of Fallon’s approach that it’s worth close examination – it’s the kind of joke that could be displayed in a museum! In fact, Fallon has subtly repeated variations of this joke in his monologues several times since, including on December 16th, 17th, and most recently, January 22nd.

Okay, so this whole thing with Jimmy Fallon and the repeated “It’s so cold” joke was wild. At first, everyone noticed he kept telling the same setup, and people started speculating – was he trying to make some point about how easy it is to recycle jokes in monologues? Was he just…forgetful? Or was it a clever little inside joke for those of us paying close attention? Turns out, he was playing the long game! On a recent episode of The Tonight Show, he ran through a bunch of those cold jokes – seriously, the J.D. Vance/Marco Rubio one, the Melania movie bit, even Trump getting a space heater in his MRI – and then, boom, out walks New York City mayor Eric Adams! He delivered his own “It’s so cold” joke about the rent freezing, and then just as quickly, he was gone. It was a really fun, unexpected moment, and it totally paid off the weeks of build-up.

The joke’s success was particularly satisfying because The Tonight Show doesn’t often attempt extended, complex humor like this. While Jimmy Fallon generally caters to mainstream tastes, he clearly has a knack for sticking with a good running gag when he finds one.

Read More

2026-01-27 20:54