Kicking off his new Audacy podcast series On the Phone with John Mingione, NEW 102.7’s John Mingione called up his old boss Jimmy Fallon to catch up and look back on their time together when Johnny interned for Jimmy in 2011 -- plus they give us a behind-the-scenes story about Justin Timberlake!
LISTEN NOW: On the Phone with John Mingione | Jimmy Fallon
“They told us day one, ‘never interact with Jimmy if you see him,’" Johnny tells Jimmy right off the bat. “I think I saw you in the food court, and naturally the first thing I said was, ‘What up, Jimmy, nice to meet you… blah, blah, blah!' We talked about ‘cork soaking’ on ‘SNL.’ I didn't get fired -- you actually said if I ever need anything pop into your office and it was a really warm welcome.”
“I appreciate it,” Fallon says. “You never took me up on that but look, it didn't stop you. Congratulations.” Johnny also remembers his parting gift after he was finished with his internship -- a piece of carpet square with a note that read, “Thank you for all your hard work. Here's a piece of carpet.”
“You're welcome,” Jimmy giggles, explaining, “You know, we had a game show on ‘Late Night’ called ‘Wheel of Carpet Samples’ and we would spin the wheel and I think people would win a carpet sample. This is 12:30 at night. I mean we were scraping for any idea we could possibly get, funny or not funny. But I remember it being kind of funny… So, to all the interns when they left as a good luck parting gift, I gave everyone a nice carpet sample. Hopefully it's in a frame somewhere.”
“I'll never forget that call from my mom,” Johnny says. “She was like, ‘You got mail from Jimmy Fallon. It's a piece of carpet. I think it might be an accident.’"
“No, that was on purpose,” Jimmy laughs. ”I hope you had a great experience because we try to involve everybody as much as we can when we're doing the show. The good thing about the show is that it's constantly evolving and changing. We have all these writers and interns and people -- they go on to do all these other great amazing things. Eventually I want to have a giant reunion of everyone from ‘Late Night’ and ‘Tonight Show’ and just, to all talk and be like, ‘What happened?’ Like a high school reunion; you see everyone grow up and they're writing sitcoms and they're writing movies and they're starring in their own shows. It's kind of amazing and it's fun, and it should be a creative open fun place, and I hope you had that experience when you were at our show.”
Johnny says the experience was incredible, recalling getting a chance to watch Jimmy and his pal Justin Timberlake rehearse heir iconic ‘Evolution of Dance’ skit for the very first time. “It was you two, a camera guy and me alone in your studio,” Johnny remembers, “and Justin Timberlake was like, ‘How'd we do?’ I'm like, fist bumping… I'm like, ‘What the f*** is my life?’”
“Now, if I remember, Timberlake is a perfectionist, but he's also Justin Timberlake. He can actually dance,” Jimmy says. “So, he would rehearse that afternoon, I had been rehearsing for two weeks in my apartment, in my kitchen. My wife is like, ‘Honey, you should go to sleep.’ I'm like, ‘I have to master ‘The Superman.’ I'm like, ‘I have to master all this so I'm not embarrassing myself in front of Justin.’” As performers, he says it’s only natural to get in front of a mirror and recite. “We have ourselves, you know, we were kind of loners,” Fallon admits. “We're like, ‘we want to be a star.’ You want to be on the radio, you have to practice. So, what do you do? No one is gonna be sitting next to you the whole time. You have to do it.”
Aside from his Tonight Show duties, Jimmy also hosts NBC’s hilarious, A-list celebrity-packed singing game show That's My Jam. For those who haven’t experienced it yet, Jimmy recommends watching Jason Derulo’s “beautiful, operatic version of ‘The Thong Song.’ I don't know if we need that, but you're getting it!” He adds, “It's a good family show, and everyone can watch -- it's after ‘The Voice,’ which is great for us… We want it to be something fun and musical, and young, so ‘The Voice’ is a perfect partner to go into it with.”
Jimmy adds, “We just took ‘The Tonight Show’ and all those bits that people love -- just grew it and grew it and put it into one show. We didn't know if it was gonna work, we just did it quickly. We did, I think, six episodes and it was a giant hit and it did really well on Peacock, which is growing and becoming a big thing now, and it was new at the time. Now, I think ‘That's My Jam’ is in five countries -- it's going kind of global, and it's become a thing -- it's like a runaway train. I did what I did, and you never know if it's going to be big or not -- and this one worked.”
Listen to Johnny’s full conversation with Jimmy Fallon above.
Follow the new Audacy podcast On The Phone with John Mingione, featuring hilariously riveting conversations from A-List celebs, chatting on the phone with Z-List radio host and TikTok star -- NEW 102.7's John 'Johnny' Mingione.