Two of The Tonight Show‘s most recent additions to its rotation of on-air games are real-life products, and the company behind them is having a blast watching Jimmy Fallon bring their creations to life.
On this past Monday night’s show, Fallon brought out guests Chris Pratt, Rose Byrne, and mgk for a game of Telestrations, a “combination of Pictionary and Telephone,” as Fallon described it. It was The Tonight Show’s first time staging the game, but if it seemed familiar to viewers, there’s a good reason: Telestrations is an existing boardgame that’s been on store shelves since 2009 from The Op Games.
Though The Tonight Show has created a stable of its own homegrown games over the years—some of which have been sold as branded home games, like Box of Lies, Face It Challenge, and Best Friends Challenge—Telestrations wasn’t Fallon’s first time drawing inspiration from The Op Games.
In fact, this week’s round of Telestrations might never have happened had Fallon not played a different game back in June. On June 11th, Fallon faced off against Gerard Butler and Michelle Monaghan in a game of Tapple, another first-time segment for the show.
As the makers of Tapple, The Op was thrilled to see their product on air—something they had no knowledge of in advance. Brian Greenwald, VP of Marketing at The Op Games, tells LateNighter that Fallon’s team discovered the game “totally organically,” adding “we learned about it with the rest of the world when the episode aired.”
While it’s difficult to track any direct result of the Tapple segment on sales, Greenwald says “we definitely think it boosted consumer interest and traffic to our site,” and may well have had an effect on consumer’s habits, too. “Introducing viewers to a game opens up the opportunity for them to seek it out the next time they decide to purchase a board game,” he added.
Excited about Tapple’s inclusion, the company decided to send more titles over to the show.
“After they played Tapple back in June, we reached out right away to thank them for such a fun segment and see what other games we could send their way for consideration,” said Greenwald. “They were so sweet and let us know they’d love to check out [our other games] so, of course, we sent them a box right away.”
When it comes to staging the games, Fallon’s team works to adapt the games for play on air. “The Tonight Show team has done an amazing job bringing our games to life with their own tech,” says Greenwald.
Whether Fallon will play more games from The Op on air remains to be seen, but it’s certainly possible. Besides Telestrations, The Op’s board game care package to The Tonight Show included the games Hues & Cues, Blank Slate, and Flip 7.
“We hope to see more in the future,” says Greenwald.
Telestrations, Tapple, and the company’s other games are available in stores and online from The Op Games.
