Jimmy Fallon loves his games, but he may have met his match when he invited fellow “Saturday Night Live” alum Will Ferrell to play a couple rounds of Whisper Challenge on “The Tonight Show” Thursday night.
By the end of the clip, it became pretty obvious that the whole thing was a set-up between the two men, but it was nevertheless absolutely hilarious to watch unfold.
The game itself is simple enough. One of them wears headphones while the other reads a simple phrase. Then, by reading lips alone, the person with the headphones on must try to identify what the speaker is saying. Hilarity ensues.
At least that’s how these things usually go. Kudos to both men for staying fully committed to this ridiculously stupid bit, kicking off with Ferrell tasked with identifying “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.” He got it pretty quickly, and at this point we were still buying into this being real and were duly impressed.
“You have very readable lips,” Ferrell told a clearly uncomfortable Fallon with a penetrating gleam in his eyes. But this was only the beginning of the insanity to come, as the game went off the rails immediately as Ferrell was tasked with saying “Baby Yoda.”
It wasn’t even close. “I have a shoplifting problem,” he began, going into excruciating detail about what he steals, how much and why. All the while, Fallon was squinting as if he was trying to figure out what exactly Ferrell was trying to say as his lips were all over the place. At this point, we were still mostly on board with this, but starting to suspect tomfoolery afoot.
In the next round, Ferrell guessed “Impossible Whopper” before Fallon even finished saying it once and the jig was up. And yet … it was about to get even better, and we didn’t even care.
Rather than say “Rum Tum Tugger,” Ferrell went all in on a story about recruiting Fallon and stealing his identity and assets to fund his new cult built around child actor Jonathan Lipnicki.
“You’ll greet me by saying, ‘Did you know that the human head weights eight pounds?'” Ferrel said, referencing Lipnicki’s line in “Jerry Maguire.” ” And then I’ll say, ‘Really? Let’s find out for ourselves.’ And that’s when I’m going to pop your pretty little head off like a f–king dandelion.”
If this is even a hint of what is to come when Ferrell returns to “Saturday Night Live” this weekend, with musical guest King Princess, then we are in for an incredible show.
He was so focused and in character throughout, keeping it straight while saying the most outlandish things. Clearly, his comedy engine is all tuned up and ready to go!
For more of Ferrell’s unique brand of lunacy, check out his “SNL” promos below with Aidy Bryant and Beck Bennett:
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