Fallon Accidentally Made Some Very Mean Trump Jokes

In a weird, rare error on the part of the assiduously inoffensive Jimmy Fallon, the host of The Tonight Show somehow allowed a bit of sharp criticism of President Trump to appear on his show. The occasion was Friday’s show, featuring guest Martin Short doing his character Jiminy Glick, the faux-sincere celebrity interviewer. Fallon was in his full Trump makeup; the setup was Glick interviewing Trump about his first 100 days in office.

Glick led off with, “Your first 100 days: complete embarrassment or total failure?” and it only got rougher from that point on. Glick chided Trump on his “limited education” and “vocabulary of six or seven words.” He asked Fallon’s Trump, “What does Putin taste like?” He swerved from the setup by noting, “It’s been 100 days — since you’ve seen Melania.”

In passing, Glick took a drive-by shot at the vice president: “If Mike Pence is against gay people, why does he walk around with a stick up his ass?”

Short was great in the sketch, relentless in the pace of the joke-telling. He’s invariably a terrific talk show guest, as his sit-down interview with Fallon later in the show proved once again.

The sketch was extremely atypical of The Tonight Show. Fallon’s Trump barely spoke, and had virtually no punch lines himself. Glick’s lines were much more barbed than Fallon usually permits his own comedy to be. I can only think that, in agreeing to get into that elaborate big-man suit and makeup, Short must have extracted an agreement to let him use many of his own lines — some of which seemed to be improvised — rather than relying on the usual bland Fallon material. The result was the funniest thing I’ve seen since Fallon took over The Tonight Show.

The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m. on NBC. Watch clips and full episodes of The Tonight Show for free on Yahoo View.