It’s no secret that some of us have been less than thrilled with Jimmy Fallon’s assorted money-making schemes these past several months. Throughout the spooky season, Fallon devoted a significant chunk of the show to hawking his new Halloween-themed children’s book, and of course, the Jimmy Fallon-themed haunted house that operated in the basement of 30 Rock.
Even before October had elapsed, Fallon began promoting his new holiday album (and adjacent holiday merchandise). Not just one brief mention, mind you, multiple Tonight Show segments were devoted to hyping the record, Holiday Seasoning. He spent eight whole minutes reading through the tracklist, before holding up a QR code linking to his online store.
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Last week he came up with a fun game for the audience to play based on Holiday Seasoning’s tie-in seasoning, which is literally just four jars of seasoning, like you’d find in any grocery store, but it comes in a gift box featuring Fallon’s face and costs $48.
Whatever, it’s only for the holidays, right?
Wrong! This week, Fallon announced the release of a new Fallon-sanctioned line of pajamas, in collaboration with clothing brand Alex Mill, called “P’Jimmies.” Yeah.
P’Jimmies were actually first introduced in 2020, but quickly sold out. Now they’re back, and to help sales along, Fallon began The Tonight Show the other day by showcasing the new line of products, even demonstrating how to use the P’Jimmies “blanket tote.” There was no silly game, or thinly-veiled comic pretext, it was simply a one-man infomercial.
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Oddly enough, just last month, Fallon dunked on the shopping channel QVC while interviewing Chris Martin, which the folks at QVC took note of:
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But is there any difference between The Tonight Show and QVC at this point? It wasn’t just the one P’Jimmies mention, that same night his guest was Alex Mill CEO Mickey Drexler, who joined the host for an extended discussion about the products. You know, kind of like on QVC.
And it didn’t stop there. The following night, Fallon and his guests all played Password — or rather, Pajama Password, in which everyone, including the guests, donned goddamn P’Jimmies.
Clearly, NBCUniversal has a stake in this venture (perhaps they’re behind the whole thing), which would explain why even the Today hosts devoted a segment to Fallon’s “very cute” sleepwear.
The hosts did note that a portion of the proceeds from Fallon’s P’Jimmies goes to a good cause: Serious Fun, an organization that provides free camps and programs to children with “life-altering medical conditions.”
But while 100 percent of the proceeds from the 2020 batch of P’Jimmies went to charity, this time they get just “10 percent of the net proceeds.” And though the percentage of funds being allocated to charity has gone way down, the price of the P’Jimmies has gone up: men’s pants cost a whopping $145. That’s just the pants, the shirt itself costs $125. That means that one set of men’s P’Jimmies will set you back $270.
Alex Mill
That tote blanket Fallon showed off to his audience? It also costs $270. And the P’Jimmies “sleep shirt,” which is just a T-shirt with the made-up word “P’Jimmies” written on the front? It’s $105. They didn’t even bother to come up with a story about how it protects you from EMF radiation, or wards off evil spirits.
Alex Mill
Even that ethically-dubious NFT promo was better than these joyless attempts to sell overpriced nightwar.