Jimmy Fallon and The Tonight Show returned to the studio on Monday following a run of “At Home” episodes amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The July 13th installment, which follows four months of the shifted format, was filmed in a modified Studio 6-A at their home base in New York City’s 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Fallon and house band the Roots will continue to appear in the studio with a scaled-back crew, Deadline reports.
No audience will attend upcoming episodes, and most of the Tonight Show staff will continue working from home. The show will utilize social distancing measures and adhere to all New York health and safety guidelines.
Monday’s episode featured Charlize Theron, musical guest Little Big Town and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, the latter of whom welcomed Fallon back in a Zoom interview. “New York is really open now that you’re doing your show again,” he said.
Cuomo also spoke about New York City’s drastic improvement in recent months with the coronavirus, including zero reported deaths on Saturday.
“We went from having the worst infection rate in the country [to] the best infection rate,” he said. “We really turned the corner. New Yorkers stepped up. They really did the right thing. They did the social distancing. They stayed at home. We tamed the beast here in New York. We just have to cross our fingers and hope that it stays there because you see the infection is now all across the country. And it’s going crazy. And we’re just worried that the infection is going to come from the other states now back to New York, which would be a real tragedy.”
As Deadline notes, The Tonight Show started filming hybrid “At Home” episodes in mid-March before moving entirely to Fallon’s home. In one memorable recent segment, the host documented the long-term effects of quarantine by playing the original song “Starting to Crack.” In another lockdown piece, he teamed with the Roots and Billy Idol to remotely tackle the singer’s “Dancing With Myself.”
