You have to give Jimmy Fallon credit, the guy can tell a great story. When he’s not playing games or laughing at everything a guest says, Fallon has dropped a few incredible tales on his show and has even been apart of a few himself. Take his tribute and memory of Prince from Monday’s opening. Being off the week Prince died, Fallon had a hand in putting together the special SNL episode on Saturday and saved his real juice for tonight with The Roots.
He started with a little recap of some stories he’s covered in the past and the events from SNL 40, but then jumped into the time that Prince wanted to play him in ping pong. Being Jimmy Fallon and seeing that Prince was going to be the musical guest very soon, the obvious idea was to play it on the show. Not for Prince, though. He just wanted to play. And he set it up through Questlove, just around the time that Fallon had a baby.
This led to a meeting at the SPiN ping pong club in New York — co-founded by Susan Sarandon — which featured your typical Prince style. Not only did he thoroughly trounce Fallon in the game, he disappeared right after he struck the final blow. Questlove then showed up just in time to catch Prince leaving, ending the story in amazing style. It was much different than his contest on New Girl:
You will be missed, Prince.
(Via The Tonight Show)