Jimmy Fallon once grabbed a cigarette out of Greg Gutfeldโs mouth, crinkled it up and tossed it to the ground, hollering at the Fox News personality, โThose things will kill you!โ But it sounds like the place where they were hanging out had a shot at killing them too.
The two late-night hosts were both โwastedโ about 15 years ago when he and Fallon met for the first time at an illegal Hellโs Kitchen bar run by a mutual friend โ one who looked like โa cross between a Viking and a larger Viking,โ the โGutfeld!โ host said Thursday night on NBCโs โThe Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.โ
The bar looked โlike a place where special-ops forces waterboard terrorists,โ he added. โThere was no bar … it was a cooler, like the kind you take to a beach.โ
โDude, youโre not making this up,โ Fallon said. โI totally know what youโre talking about. … I think I remember bringing beer into the bar and then him charging me for my own beer.โ
The menโs magazine editor-turned-satirist recalled that their mutual friend operated that way. โHe is very cheap, but if you want someone dead, heโll do it.โ
So he walks into the illegal bar with his buddy Andy Levy after the two had just finished taping something โ perhaps โRed Eye w/Greg Gutfeldโ โ and Fallon sees him and then tackles him, he said, โlike a giant golden retriever.โ Then the NBC host grabs Andy and the two fall to the ground wrestling. So Gutfeld decides itโs a good time to spark up a cigarette.
But Fallon leaps up, rips it out of his mouth and shouts the aforementioned youโre-gonna-die warning. โI go … โDude, Iโm not rich. Youโre rich,โโ Gutfeld said. โCigarettes are expensive in New York City.โ
He said Fallonโs face suddenly changed to one of sadness. โAnd then you left.โ
Five minutes later, the โSaturday Night Liveโ alumnus came back toting a fresh pack of Parliaments, which he handed to the co-host of โThe Five.โ
โAnd I go, โThat was really sweet. You want me to die.โโ
Gutfeld, who was on โThe Tonight Showโ to promote a new game show heโs hosting, then remembered the group piling into Fallonโs car and tooling around to another bar that was, well, in the same building. โWe literally drove from one door to another door … I think you wanted to impress that you had a driver.โ
These are the things, apparently, that happen to the rich.
โYeah!โ Fallon said. โWe had a nice ride, right?โ
A nice ride indeed. Short, but nice. Meanwhile, over on โGutfeld,โ fill-in host Kat Timpf was talking about her erstwhile boss taking two full days off work to get a colonoscopy. Oh, how times have changed.
And the tables have indeed turned quite a bit in the last 15 years: โGutfeld!,โ which airs on Fox News at 7 p.m. local time and 10 p.m. Eastern and riffs on politics and the news of the day, is leading the nighttime chat show pack with โ according to LateNighter โ 3.289 million viewers in the second quarter and 238,000 in the advertiser-coveted demographic of those ages 18 to 49.
Fallonโs โTonight Showโ drew only 1.19 million viewers in the second quarter with 157,000 in the demo. That trails Stephen Colbertโs โLate Show,โ which has a year to go before cancellation and leads the 11:35 p.m. broadcast pack with 2.42 million viewers and 219,000 in the demo in the second quarter, followed by โJimmy Kimmel Live!โ with 1.77 million viewers and 220,000 in the demo.