The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon used a special post–Sunday Night Football edition of the show Sunday to debut a follow-up to one of its most-watched musical sketches ever.
The new piece revives and expands upon the show’s “Wicked Beat” bit, Fallon’s stylized, rhythm-heavy send-up of Wicked that became a breakout success upon the release of the first movie last year. The original bit—starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo—generated more than 228 million views and 20 million interactions across all digital platforms, making it one of The Tonight Show’s top clips of 2024.
The sequel brings back Grande and Erivo but widens the frame, enlisting the full Wicked: For Good ensemble. Bowen Yang, Jonathan Bailey, Michelle Yeoh, Ethan Slater, Marissa Bode, and Jeff Goldblum join the pair in a beat-driven, rapid-fire mashup that riffs on their characters and some of the film’s most recognizable motifs. The staging mirrors the original’s tight, rhythmic fast-cut delivery, with each cast member stepping in for their own lyric punch or synchronized cue. (Fallon makes an appearance, too.)
Sunday night’s debut of the new bit kicked off what Fallon’s Tonight Show is calling “Wicked Week,” with the show set to host Grande, Erivo and Yeoh over the next three nights ahead of the film’s release later this week.
NBC and Universal Pictures, of course, share a corporate parent in Comcast, with The Tonight Show being just one arm of NBC’s promotional efforts for the flick, with cast members popping up everywhere from the The Voice to the Today show to Fallon’s lead-out, Late Night with Seth Meyers, which is set to welcome three of the film’s stars this week—Goldblum on Monday, Bailey on Wednesday, and Erivo on Thursday.
Watch The Tonight Show’s new “Wicked Beat” bit at the top of this post, and visit our lineups area for for updated guest listings for all the late-night shows.
I can not find the link to play the latest Wicked Beat. I had no issues to watch last year’s. Did I miss the link?