Jimmy Fallon returns to 30 Rock for the first time since COVID-19 lockdown

Kylie Mar
·Host & Producer, Yahoo Entertainment
Updated ·3 min read

The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon returned to its studio at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City on Monday for the first time since suspending production due to COVID-19 in March.

Fallon opened the show with a heartfelt message to his viewers: "As a New Yorker, I want to say thank you to everyone who helped get us back to where we are now, wearing masks, social distancing, washing hands, quarantining, it all helps. To all the states going through the tough parts right now, our friends in Florida, Arizona, Texas, California, all over the south, I know how hard it is and I'm not going to lie to you. It's rough."

"I'm here to show you there is a light at the end of the tunnel if we all do our part to keep each other safe. I don't know if anyone else feels this way but, normalcy, any type of normalcy, feels great. So, hopefully we can put a smile on your face for an hour every night and let you sit back and relax while we try to bring you a little bit of normal. These are the hardest times to do comedy, but they're also the times we need it the most. Maybe that's why comedy was invented," said Fallon, who got a little emotional.

Fallon also shared the precautions he and his team are taking to put on the safest show possible, as he explained that everyone in the studio had tested negative for COVID, and were wearing masks and face shields, while standing six feet apart. "We are taking this seriously, and I want to thank NBC for doing a good job making sure everyone here feels safe. Just to walk through my day, when I got in this morning, I had a temperature check, I did the nose swab test, the one that goes all the way up into your brain. I didn't know at the same time you can get a COVID test and a colonoscopy," joked Fallon.

There was no live audience, and Fallon's guests, Charlize Theron and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, streamed their interviews from the safety of their own homes. Regardless, Fallon was so excited to be back in the studio, that he closed out his opening monologue breaking out into song and doing what he does best — making us, and even himself, laugh.

The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m. on NBC.

Watch Charlize Theron revealing the ‘heartbreaking’ conversations she has had with her Black daughters about systemic racism:

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