WATCH: Jimmy Fallon Sings of Love With the Disembodied Head of Lionel Richie
Just in time for Halloween!
Professional giggling scamp Jimmy Fallon made his first foray into horror on The Tonight Show when he elected to parody the classic 80s ballad “Hello” with the head of the artist who made it a hit, Lionel Richie. As Uproxx reminded us, the original video—in constant MTV rotation in 1984—was a classic in so many ways, including perfectly capturing some wardrobe and hairstyle choices most sane folks alive at the time would rather forget.
We like to imagine Fallon snarling “Bring me the head of Lionel Richie” to a quivering NBC underling, in his effort to be faithful to Richie’s original video. It does, after all, have a bit of a creepy vibe 31 years after it was made: melancholy music instructor falls for blind student, blind student reveals at the end that she’s sculpted a haunting, blank-eyed bust of the teacher. The screen goes dark as, we assume, she leans in for the kill.
Fallon may claim he was merely making an affectionate parody, but that lingering, unsettled feeling we have after watching America’s most affable talk show host sing along with Lionel Richie’s re-animated dome suggests Fallon is taking sketch ideas from his nightmares.
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