"The Tonight Show" was on hiatus last week, meaning host Jimmy Fallon did not get the chance to pay tribute to the late musician Prince when he passed away at the age of 57 on April 21.
Last night, "Saturday Night Live" was supposed to air a re-run episode but instead took the opportunity to air an entire episode dedicated to Prince, with a special monologue from Fallon, a former cast member of "SNL."
"Other people may have been on the show more times or performed more frequently, but there was always something different about a Prince performance," Fallon said in the special episode titled "Goodnight, Sweet Prince." "It was special. It was an event. It was Prince. Times have changed, styles have come and gone, but no matter what, Prince has never not been cool."
The rest of the episode featured some of Prince's most memorable musical performances over the course of his time as a musical guest on "SNL," and it even included his first ever time on the show when he was just 22 years old in 1981. The episode also featured former cast mate Fred Armisen's hilarious impression of Prince during the sketch "The Prince Show."
For the first time ever, "SNL" showed the footage from last year's "SNL 40" after party, where Prince took the stage by surprise at 4:30 a.m. at the Plaza Hotel. Fallon told the story of how he played the role of impromptu host for the party and actually dared Prince to come on stage and perform.
"Prince, if you're in the room, I dare you to come up and sing something for us," Fallon said
Fallon then said that the crowd parted ways like the red sea, and all of a sudden, Prince emerged and took the stage and then "destroyed" his performance of "Let's Go Crazy" while stars like Chris Rock, Maya Rudolph and Bill Murray danced on stage beside him.
"I think it really was a cloud of purple smoke," he recalled. "This dude floated. You just see this little afro floating toward you, and it's almost like he had rockets on his legs or something. He wasn't really walking."
"He got up and it was unbelievable," Fallon said.
