If you feel like you can’t open up an app without seeing “The Tonight Show,” that is because it might be true. This week alone the NBC staple has seen over 61 million views across social media and 6.1 million social engagements, TheWrap has exclusively learned. It marks one of the series’ biggest weeks on social media, according to insiders familiar with the matter.
In a testament to the speed of the “Tonight Show” booking team, the biggest video of the week belonged to the Philadelphia Eagles. After the NFL team’s win over the Kansas City Chiefs during the Super Bowl, quarterback Jalen Hurts and running back Saquon Barkley joined “The Tonight Show” on Tuesday night. Behind-the-scenes, Hurts, Barkley and the rest of the Eagles’ offensive line filmed a video using a viral snippet of audio from the movie “Mufasa.” That video alone has seen 30.1 million views and 3.4 million engagements across social media.
The clip currently ranks as the third most-watched TikTok in the history of “The Tonight Show.” It also secured over 24 million views in 24 hours, making it one of the show’s top performers on social media in a single day.
That was followed by a clip of Fallon with “Saturday Night Live” alum Amy Poehler and Tina Fey. That behind-the-scenes video — set to a club remix of the chess scene in the first “Harry Potter” movie — saw 9.7 million viewers and secured 890,000 engagements.
Though the NFL and “SNL” paved the way for this highly social week, they weren’t the only reason for these numbers. A video of “XO, Kitty” star Anna Cathcart signing the show’s camera secured 3.9 million views and over 300,000 engagements. A video with Halsey set to the notorious Elijah Woods prank interview secured 2.3 million views. Finally, a video of Adam Lambert plugging his appearance on the show saw 1.2 million views and 19,000 engagements. The metrics for all of these videos continues to climb.
David Letterman may be critical of Fallon’s social strategy, but the numbers don’t lie. Embracing those TikTok trends seems to be paying off for the late night behemoth.
