Though it’s been said before, there’s something particularly fun about a lot of the variety and talent shows on TV these days.
Though late-night television went through a phase of more serious, ironic comedy at the hands of David Letterman, it has taken a turn recently for the more earnest and fun. When Jimmy Fallon took over for Jay Leno, he brought with him an affinity for games and silly bits and live performances that proved popular—and started to bleed out onto other channels as well.
Following from that trend is the emergence of lip-syncing all over television!
Everyone has lip-synched to a song at some point in their life, but hosts like James Corden have brought these impromptu musical performances to a wider audience.
For those who don’t know, Corden is the host of “The Late Late Show” which has a recurring segment where he does “Carpool Karaoke” with different celebrities. Though it’s hard to tell who influenced who first, Fallon started doing lip-sync battles on “The Tonight Show” to wild popularity online. After noticing how well he was doing, it wasn’t long before network executives spun the segment off into its own show.
The show is the aptly named “Lip Sync Battle”—and one of the best clips on it features Jimmy Fallon himself.
Just like on Fallon’s show, two celebrity contestants have to go head-to-head to see who can put their all into a lip-synching performance.
Each contestant often gets help from a group of back-up performers (in later seasons) and from their own choreography. To kick things off, the show had Jimmy Fallon go up against none other than Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson—all while LL Cool J hosts. As the clip starts, LL Cool J asks The Rock which song he’s going to do. “Tay-Tay,” he says, “I’ve never heard of Tay-Tay,” Fallon says back. After a few moments, it becomes clear what song he’s going to do.
The Rock will be lip-synching to “Shake It Off” by Taylor Swift!
As the song starts, The Rock starts bobbing his shoulders up and down.
Before long, he’s throwing all his energy into imitating Taylor Swift’s bubbly, fun performance of a song that everybody in the crowd knows. It’s clear that he’s completely committed to selling the performance and the crowd is fully on his side, clapping along all the while. He does a few big moves at the end to sign off and draws Taylor Swift’s initials in the air.
Finally, he blows a kiss to the audience and the crowd goes wild!
Still, the performance isn’t quite over yet—Jimmy Fallon has to give his response!
To start things off, he has to give The Rock a hard time for giving such a comfortable performance of the song. He even says that he’s probably done it before in his bedroom! After a little more trash talking, Fallon sets into what he’s there to do. He announces that he’ll be singing “Jump in the Line” by Harry Belafonte, a salsa classic that’s sure to get the party started. After a few moments, LL Cool J gives Fallon his proper introduction.
With that, he gets started on his impassioned performance.
To kick things off, he does a few salsa moves to get the crowd excited—and everyone claps along.
Although the audience is definitely enjoying the show, nobody seems to be having more fun than Fallon himself as he trots through the steps and turns the mic towards the crowd. To take it even further, he moves into the audience and starts a conga line! The crowd participation definitely helps him out and by the time he gets back on-stage, he’s exhausted!
Once again, the crowd gives a huge round of applause.
Although the stakes were already high, the two lip-sync titans were only on song one!
You would have to watch the full episode to see all the back and forth, but we’ll also include the finale battle complete with full choreography and back-up dancers for your viewing pleasure as well:
After all was said and done, it was time to call a vote… and The Rock wins!
Regardless, both contestants gave it their all and the initial moment was viewed some 57 million times on YouTube! Although there’s not really a point to the entire competition, the whole thing is in good fun and lets the American people see their favorite stars at their absolute silliest. If you watched these videos, who did you think did a better job… and what songs would you perform to if you were on the show?
Congratulations to The Rock on his big win! Check out the full clip below:
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