For anyone who might have doubted Jimmy Fallon and Dakota Johnson‘s prank calls to a New York pharmacy and an Arizona gas station earlier this week, it seems they were 100% real.
Which is to say that neither business had a heads-up that Fallon would be calling; in fact, neither knew that they’d been pranked by The Tonight Show until after the bit aired on Monday night.
Fallon and Johnson called at least two establishments during the taping—only one of which made it to the show’s broadcast. Another, to Drug World, a pharmacy in Cold Spring, NY, was featured in a web-exclusive extended cut of the interview.
On the spot, Johnson (disguising herself as a Southern-accented ‘Lucy’) decided to tell the pharmacist that her roommate had “a really big problem in his butt.” As she began detailing the issue, the pharmacist put her on hold, prompting Johnson and Fallon to hang up.
According to Caitlin Chadwick, Director of Marketing & Development for the family-owned business, the employee who answered was a new hire. “Poor thing! Talk about a trial by fire,” she says. “We think she was just completely caught off guard. It’s not every day someone calls asking about rear-end remedies, and it’s definitely not a subject we cover in our training manual, although we’re seriously considering adding it.”
The Drug World team only learned about the prank after being sent the clip by a friend. Since then, they’ve been rewatching it in disbelief.
“We were shocked and completely amused,” says Chadwick. “It was wild, totally unexpected, and honestly, we’re flattered.”
With no connection to The Tonight Show, Chadwick says Drug World is convinced they were chosen for having “the best business name ever.”
“Total credit goes to Grandpa for coming up with ‘Drug World,’” she says. “It’s bold, it’s iconic, and apparently… prank-worthy.”
After that first call, Fallon zeroed in on another business on his list: an Arizona gas station that he understood to be named “Crazy Tony’s Shell.” (As it turns out, the gas station recently changed its name to Oak Creek Market.)
“You’re not gonna believe this. Can you help me?” Fallon asked after a gas station employee answered his call.
“Um, maybe?” she replied.
“Well, I’m stuck in your bathroom right now and there’s no toilet paper,” he explained.
“Oh my! Hold on one second,” the concerned worker exclaimed. Taken aback by her kindness, a guilty Fallon again abandoned ship.
“Wait, I got out!” he tried telling her before hanging up.
So was that call also as real as it seemed? Even realer, if that’s possible. Unbeknownst to Fallon, the gas station really did have someone get stuck without toilet paper in their bathroom just a few days ago.
Speaking to LateNighter, Oak Creek’s Mary Edwards recounted finding out about the store’s brush with fame.
“We had a couple of customers come in and tell us we were famous. And I was like, ‘What?!’” says Edwards. “Everybody knew about it [by then]. We live in a really small town, so there was a lot of people that knew before we did.”
“I was shocked,” she adds, “[that] out of all the stores they picked this.”
Just like at Drug World, the person who answered the phone at Oak Creek was a new employee. “When I told her who had actually called, she was pretty shocked,” says Edwards.
For both Drug World and Oak Creek Gas Station, Fallon and Johnson left their lives as quickly as they entered them. Neither business has heard from The Tonight Show since the calls heard on air.
After pranking the gas station, Dakota Johnson suggested to Fallon that they send flowers as an apology. According to Edwards, any flowers have yet to arrive.
In one sort-of-positive consequence from the bit, minutes after it aired on the East Coast, a Tonight Show viewer left a positive review on the Yelp page of the now-defunct Crazy Tony’s Shell. “The worker was so helpful when I was stuck in the bathroom,” Yelper Travis L. wrote. “She came to get me out so quick and no questions asked. 10/10 would recommend.”
The extended cut of Fallon and Johnson’s phone call fun can be viewed below:
