Tig Notaro stops back by The Tonight Show to finally ID the mystery celebrity on her flight
And everyone says the internet is only a tool for evil
On Monday night’s Tonight Show, comedian Tig Notaro sought out viewers’ help. Toting along a surreptitiously snapped photo of a red-haired woman who’d been seated next to the One Mississippi star on a recent airline flight, Notaro told Jimmy Fallon how baffled she’d been by the constant parade of glowing adulation sent the way of her seat mate.
Not that the responsibly masked passenger didn’t necessarily deserve such effusive, flight-long praise from people exclaiming, “Even with a mask on, I know that hair,” and the like. Or maybe she didn’t. Notaro simply had no clue. As comic and unlikely action hero Notaro told Fallon on Monday, she spent the entire flight enlisting the online help of her wife and her online, “celebrity-obsessed” friends in trying to figure out just who the hell this auburn-haired figure of incessant fan worship might be—all to no avail.
Notaro even came up empty once she engaged her neighbor in a brief exchange to alert the mystery woman about a spider on her leg. (Not that Notaro only mentioned the spider in order to obtain another clue or anything, but the woman’s grateful response still gave Notaro nothing to go on.)
Well, thanks to Fallon posting Notaro’s nonchalantly snapped photo on Twitter (“Well, I guess you also aired you show,” deadpanned Notaro), the mystery of the redheaded, curly-haired possible celebrity has been solved. Appearing on Tuesday kitted out in full winter-wear for another trip to the airport, the busy Notaro sat down for the second night in a row with the happy-to-see-her Fallon.
Taking off her flight-ready neck pillow and setting aside her wheelie-bag and carryon, Notaro, reminding everyone of her nagging obsession with her brush with supposed fame, broke the news that the nation’s Twitter snoops had collectively engaged in a game of “Hey, it’s that lady from that thing.” The resulting consensus being that Notaro’s cross-country partner had been—wait for it—Rebecca Wisocky.
Notaro, famous for taking a weird bit all the way to its often eccentric destination, made this two-appearance, one costume change late-night anecdote wort the wait. “America’s sweetheart!,” Notaro pumped up the subject of her investigative efforts, gamely noting that veteran actress and former Devious Maids antagonist Wisocky is currently co-starring on CBS’ Ghosts (9 p.m. on Thursdays), which, evidently, a fair number of frequent fliers are watching with rapt attention.