Jimmy Fallon is playing the role of peacemaker in the nasty feud between Jay Leno and NBC, it now appears.
Sources say it was Fallon who reached out to the “Tonight Show” host last week, asking him to record a duet mocking NBC’s ongoing late-night debacle that aired Monday night.
The video was an Internet sensation all day yesterday with more than 60,000 hits on YouTube and an undisclosed number of additional hits on NBC’s own Web site.
Producers from Fallon’s “Late Night” traveled to LA last Friday to tape Leno’s half of the comedy routine, including singing a specially rewritten version of “Tonight” from “West Side Story.”
Fallon’s part was done in New York.
The four-minute parody — which served as the cold open to Fallon’s show — was the first sign that NBC is willing to play along with the comedy surrounding reports it plans to can Leno when his contract ends in 2014.
“Jay got to make a couple of good points — that he continues to be number one and that he’s been through this before,” says Howard Bragman, CEO of reputation.com.
“But he is smart enough in the ways of television to know that ultimately the decision [of when he leaves] is not going to be his.”
In the clip, Fallon is in his office when he receives a check-in call from Leno.
“Jay, can I ask you something?” Fallon then asks. “We’re still friends, right?”
“Yeah, of course we’re still friends,” Leno assures him.
The Hollywood trade press was quick to give the stunt a thumbs- down yesterday.
“Doesn’t have an ounce of believability,” wrote Hollywood Reporter critic Tim Goodman, “and plays like a clip from a Hallmark movie about lovers that’s airing sometime soon on Bravo.”