Andy Samberg thanks the Guardians Of The 99 for saving his job, heckles Jimmy Fallon at his
Andy Samberg joined old Saturday Night Live buddy and new network-mate Jimmy Fallon on Tuesday’s Tonight Show to celebrate the return of Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Granted a reprieve after being unceremoniously shitcanned by Fox, the enduringly hilarious cop sitcom comes back on Thursday on its new NBC home, right before creator Michael Schur’s other stellar current series, The Good Place. (Making NBC TV’s Good Place, at least for an hour a week.) Citing the outpouring of online support for Brooklyn Nine-Nine as instrumental in saving Detective Jake Peralta and company’s bacon, Samberg told Jimmy Fallon that its the unlikely heroism of a ragtag group of plucky celebrity heroes that gets much of the credit.
As noted during the firestorm of criticism that Fox was cancelling arguably its best, funniest, and most cast-diverse show (while reviving aggrieved old white guy grunt-fest Last Man Standing), Brooklyn Nine-Nine boasts some eclectically cool fans, including the likes of Lin-Manuel Miranda, Mark Hamill, Guillermo del Toro, Sean Astin, and other former-SNL NBC employee Seth Meyers, all of whom bonded on Twitter over their shared love of the deadpan comic stylings of Andre Braugher, among other shenanigans. (They call themselves the Guardians of the 99, and Samberg has some interesting ideas for a spinoff film, if del Toro is up to film it.) Promising that the Nine-Nine’s new digs won’t change anything about how New York’s most honorable-yet-ridiculous coppers will go about their business, Samberg—whose musical-comedy troupe The Lonely Island (alongside pals Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone) will be performing live at Bonnaroo in June—showed a clip where new wife Amy Santiago’s signature preparedness provides Samberg’s Jake with stacks of recklessly spendable wedding insurance cash.
Oh, and since Fallon and Samberg are both inveterate goofballs, they wheeled out Fallon’s bit where thoroughly un-confident singer Peter (Fallon) gets loudly heckled by an invariably Dutch boy-coiffed audience member (Samberg). As far as Fallon’s bits go, at least Samberg (like Tracy Morgan and Will Ferrell before him) gets all the laughs, riffing absurdly on Rupert Holmes’ “Escape (The Piña Colada Song).” Plus, Samberg’s cake-obsessed heckler has his own website, if you can’t get enough of the bit. Or cake.