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Remember the BBC interview that went viral back in 2017 when a professor’s toddler (adorably) barged into his Skype-live-shot? Surprise kid cameos were so novel then. Cut to the present day, in the throes of quarantine and the era of broadcasting from home, and children are pretty much taking over late-night television.
This week alone, tykes busted in on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and Late Night with Seth Meyers, to hilarious effect. Fallon’s daughters, Winnie and Franny, have become frequent, rather formidable co-stars on his at-home edition. Winnie is credited with sketching his new desk logo; Franny has interrupted Fallon’s monologue, along with their dog, Gary, to request (demand?) he play with her. On Tuesday night, the girls ran into their dad’s office giggling as Fallon interviewed Ethan Hawke. Can any woman of the 90’s blame them?
“Don’t you come over here,” Fallon warned, attempting to contain his daughters in a moment of pure parent realness, while they forced his head out of the frame entirely. Hawke loved it, saying, “that is definitely the best moment I’ve ever had on television.”
Indeed, mischievous kids have a way of jazzing up the standard split-screen remote interview. Tina Fey’s 8-year-old daughter, Penelope, made it clear she’s inherited her mom’s sense of humor when she popped into Fey’s Late Night with Seth Meyers interview on Tuesday’s show—though Fey, to her credit, ribbed her daughter’s plaid dress by saying, “Please hold, there’s a colonial lady coming in.”
Fey attempted the patented “mom calm” voice. “We’re taping a television program right now,” she explained, “do you need something?” Penelope then proceeded to make an “L”-for-loser sign on her forehead as Fey and Meyers feebly attempted to defend their coolness. The L “means ‘loyalist’ in colonial times, so joke’s on you,” Fey joked.
At the outset of quarantine, certain online guides to working from home advised keeping kids out of the Zoom frame. But two months later, it’s become abundantly clear that the kids cannot, and will not, be avoided. Plus, children popping in on their famous parents is so much more fun and interesting than the usual behind-the-desk studio chats. The next generation has raw talent. All in favor of giving Franny, Winnie and Penelope a spin-off?