“The Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon is getting mocked for a silly song he wrote about the newest COVID variant, which he sang “might be the best.”
“It’s a new strain, but it isn’t the same,” he says of XBB.1.5. “Sounds more like Elon Musk’s kid’s name.”
The comedian debuted the song Saturday night. “Put on your mask when you’re inside a facility,” Fallon sang, sans mask. “It could be a robot from a Star Wars trilogy.”
Jimmy performs a tiny song about the new COVID variant, XBB.1.5. #FallonTonight pic.twitter.com/cQq1sBTiFq
— The Tonight Show (@FallonTonight) January 6, 2023
“Jimmy Fallon singing about how XBB.1.5 is the best COVID variant yet … This is 5th Gen Warfare … You are under attack,” one person replied.
“Comedy,” former MMA fighter Jake Shields wrote sarcastically of the clip.
“What’s the joke?” someone asked in response to the video, which just consists of Fallon saying the variant name over and over and comparing it to other things, like “your parent’s Wi-Fi.”
“The entire thing,” someone else quipped.
“In case anyone wondered why the era of late night tv is over,” another Twitter user said.
“Cult cringe X 100,” Catturd observed. His comment earned more than double the number of likes that the original video posted by “The Tonight Show” received.
This is not the first time Fallon sang about COVID as part of his comedy schtick. In December 2021, he premiered the song “It Was a Masked Christmas” along with Megan Thee Stallion and Ariana Grande.
While introducing the song, the comedian said that the previous holiday was “terrible,” but that “things are going to get better soon.” The song urged listeners to “get in line for a booster” to avoid being lonely like they were in 2020.
“It was a masked Christmas, we stayed in the house/We covered our nose, and covered our mouth,” the chorus said. “But it’s Christmas time/We’ll be in line for a booster.”
The accompanying music video showed hand sanitizer squirting over everything, including a turkey at the dinner table.
Also in December 2021, President Joe Biden called into Fallon’s late-night show to tell viewers it was “patriotic” to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
“The COVID problem, I don’t know what else to do and how else to tell people to get the vaccine,” Fallon said. “At this point, just, I think people are going to do what they will, I guess, I don’t know what to say, but is it the youth that we have to — hope the kids get us out of this? Because, I mean, I got vaccinated, I got boosted, I got — whatever you want.”
Biden said maybe the “Masked Christmas” song would inspire more people to get vaccinated.