Zohran Mamdani Lands Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show Bit

""It was so cold in New York City this morning, walking to work, I saw a Wall Street stockbroker spooning with Zohran Mamdani." This joke, first delivered by Jimmy Fallon on December 9, perfectly encapsulates the spirit of the host's Tonight Show monologue jokes. It's rhythmic, lightly topical, tepid, and over and done with before you have time to think about it. The quip is so representative of Fallon's whole deal that it deserves to be studied."

"By the third time Fallon repeated the joke, audiences caught on. Compilation clips began circulating online, and people wondered what Fallon's endgame was. Was he making a grandiose statement about the plug-and-play nature of monologue jokes? Was he simply being careless and repeating the same joke without realizing? Was he doing a subtle callback to reward eagle-eyed viewers?"

"Well, on The Tonight Show's January 26 episode, the late-night host revealed that he'd been playing the long game all along. He began by telling a series of jokes with the same premise: "It's so cold, J.D. Vance shrunk to the size of Marco Rubio. It's so cold, I watched the Melania movie just to warm my heart. It's so cold, President Trump got a space heater installed in his MRI machine." Finally, Mamdani walked on to huge cheers from the audience. "Jimmy, let me try one," he said. "It's so cold in New York City, the rent froze itself." Then, as quickly as the mayor arrived, he was gone."

Jimmy Fallon delivered an early December joke about New York cold that pictured a Wall Street stockbroker spooning with Zohran Mamdani. The joke exemplified Fallon's rhythmic, lightly topical monologue style: tepid, quick, and designed to pass before deep thought. Fallon repeated variations of the same conceit on multiple nights, prompting online compilations and speculation about motive or oversight. On January 26 Fallon revealed an intentional long game by stringing together several "It's so cold" premises and then bringing Mamdani onstage to deliver a callback: "It's so cold in New York City, the rent froze itself." The payoff generated audience cheers.

Read at Vulture