Martin Short is widely considered to be the greatest late-night talk show guest of all-time, mostly because he meticulously prepares a slew of killer jokes before he arrives.
And the comedian and actor, who is currently Emmy-nominated for his role in Only Murders in the Building, did not disappoint when he sat down with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show Thursday night.
“James Thomas Fallon, my God, your name screams out diversity,” Short began. And after a couple of jokes at his own expense, he continued laying into the host. “Now I haven’t seen you since the big Saudi golf tournament,” he said. “Who knew that you and the Crown Prince were such buddies?! The giggling and the giggling.”
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As Fallon struggled to hold it together, Short added, “In fact, tell everyone what you were telling me about how the Proud Boys is so much more than a club, what did you mean by that?”
From there, he moved on to other targets. “Do I regret my ‘Kim and Pete Forever’ tattoo? Sure,” Short said, before recounting what it was like to be at Mar-a-Lago when the FBI raid went down.
“I don’t love Trump’s politics, but I love his omelet station,” he joked. “And it’s so great, because if you’re a member you can just read as many classified documents as you want.” Short then joked that he used to babysit Eric and Donald Trump Jr. but when they played Monopoly, “their version of the winner is the first person to yell ‘bankruptcy!’”
Asked by Fallon what he’s learned about his Only Murders co-star Steve Martin on tour, Short replied, “I’ve learned that he will pay top dollar for clean urine.” And then, “I’ve learned from him that you don’t need to have a pool to have a pool boy.”
Even after the host attempted to turn more serious by praising Short’s performance on their Hulu show, which received 17 Emmy nominations for its first season, he couldn’t help but deliver yet another joke. “Thank you,” he said. “And I’m just letting you know I’m making it red-carpet official with Liz Cheney when I go there.”
Since he’s nominated opposite Steve Martin for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series, Short said, “If I can’t win I hope that he wins, but I can win, so screw him.” But if Martin does win, then Short said he’ll just “send Will Smith up to slap him.”
“Here’s the thing,” he concluded. “If someone had told me 20 years ago that I would be on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon with all these Emmy nominations, I would have said, ‘Jimmy Fallon?’”
