Jimmy Fallon welcomed his good pal Shaquille O’Neal to “The Tonight Show” Monday night, but he may live to regret that decision after the big guy goaded him into make a truly bizarre Super Bowl bet.
Even more amazingly, Shaq didn’t even seem to care which team he was going to back for this bet as he totally let Fallon call out his choice first. The native New Yorker surprised no one by going with the New England Patriots.
“This thing” is a fake life-sized fish-head necklace Shaq gave Jimmy as a goofy gift. When he challenged Jimmy to follow suit, Jimmy balked at the idea of using actual superglue for this one and we don’t blame him. That stuff permanently bonds to human skin.
“I can’t do superglue. I have really sensitive lips,” he explained, to which Shaq challenged him to kiss him on the cheek and prove it. Of course, Fallon did so immediately and Shaq agreed here was no way he’d survive a superglue fish kiss.
The guys are clearly genuine friends as that warmth and affection came through in their every interaction. It was really sweet to watch, and their banter was so silly we caught ourselves smiling at just how much they were enjoying each other’s company.
Later, however, Jimmy wasn’t having nearly as much fun when they started talking about Shaq’s epic pre-Super Bowl parties, which have become more like sports-themed music festivals with Shaq as the resident DJ introducing his famous friends from the industry.
And he had a special invite this year. Since Jimmy chose to back the Patriots, Shaq totally wanted to party with them. “Gronkowski, I need you at my party,” Shaq said into the camera. “I got tickets, I got passes for your friends and family.”
They showed a clip of Gronk legitimately jumping up onto Shaq’s shoulders from the firs-ever Shaq party, and that’s quite a physical feat considering how enormous Shaq is a 7’1″.
Jimmy was shouting at the television screen, too. “He does not have passes. Do not go,” he pleaded with Gronkowski. “Sleep. Have the best night’s sleep ever.” By the end he was pleading with the Gronk to just go to sleep now to make sure he was well rested enough for the big game.
Elsewhere during the show, they played one of Fallon’s silly games, but it actually included a genuine moment of friendship between them that touched Jimmy’s heart.
But mostly it was two guys looking at ridiculous things one at a time and trying to get the other guy to guess what it was simply by describing it (minus a few key words).
We’re not sure what was funnier, the various silly things they had to describe, or Shaq’s response when Jimmy was trying to describe Shrek to him.
And from that, Shaq said, “Spongebob the Squarepants?”
Check out the whole game and find out how Shaq threw some pretty hilarious shade at Charles Barkley during the final round in the video above.