Twitter’s Best Dunks on ‘Variety’ Mistakenly Thinking Jimmy Fallon Was in ‘Taxi Driver’

Ahead of their upcoming return to the airwaves, Jimmy Fallon shared an anecdote with the Strike Force Five surrounding the circumstances of him replacing Conan O’Brien on Late Night — a gig he wasn’t angling for to begin with. Fresh off of Fallon’s stint on Saturday Night Live, Lorne Michaels asked the comedian if he’d be interested in a hosting job. Fallon, however, rejected the idea — with a caveat. “In six years, ask me, and if I’m around, I’ll think about it,” he told Michaels. 

And so, six years and two middling acting credits later, Michaels returned to his original proposition. This time, Fallon was all in. The network on the other hand? Not so much. Fallon recalled Michaels telling him, “NBC doesn’t really want you. But we have to talk to them,” which they successfully did, resulting in Fallon’s 14 years (and counting) in late-night television.

Variety promoted Fallon’s revelation to its Twitter feed and even listed his tepid box office career with Taxi and Fever Pitch, only with one glaring error. Part of the tweet read: “Execs were ‘cold’ on him after Taxi Driver and Fever Pitch films didn’t work.” The mix-up created a parallel universe where Fallon wasn’t a clumsy cop but instead the unstable cabbie at the center of Martin Scorsese’s 1976 classic. While the mishap is understandable, the timeline wasn’t exactly forgiving as those on Twitter made numerous jokes at the expense of Variety’s social media manager and Fallon. Here are our favorites…

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