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Jon Hamm's Dramatic Christmas Carols Performance Is in Fact Hilarious
We'll never hear "Grandma Got Ran Over By a Reindeer" the same way again after Hamm's harrowing delivery.
Jon Hamm's body of work includes plenty of very funny roles, such as Dr. Drew Baird, Liz Lemon's air-headed boyfriend on 30 Rock, and a deranged cult leader on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt—both of which earned Hamm Emmy nominations. Yet he also won an Emmy for plumbing much darker depths in his best-known role as Don Draper on Mad Men, and he recently earned a Golden Globe nomination for his work on the drama series Fargo.
Host Jimmy Fallon decided to tap Hamm's range in festive fashion during Hamm's December 20 visit to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
"Since it's almost Christmas, I thought it might be fun to challenge you to a little holiday acting contest," Fallon told Hamm, who plays Coach Carr in the 2023 Mean Girls movie. "It is time for "Dramatic Christmas Carols."
How Dramatic Christmas Carols works: "There is a pile of cards right here on this desk with lyrics from famous Christmas carols," Fallon explained. "We're going to take turns selecting a card, then looking into the camera in front of you, and you're going to read the lyrics in the most dramatic, serious way possible."
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Hamm was extremely on board. Then, he proceeded to go from 0 to "is he...crying!?!" in mere seconds.
Jon Hamm performs Dramatic Christmas Carols on The Tonight Show
First up: "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus," in which Hamm turned an already-slightly-strange Christmas song into a harrowing tale of domestic strife.
Then it was Fallon's turn, taking "I'm Getting Nuttin' for Christmas" into way naughtier territory than Shirley Temple ever did. Yet it was no match for Hamm's take on "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer," which the actor sells so hard you might get genuinely concerned for his family for a second.
"I will never listen to that song the same!" Fallon said.
Fallon and Hamm ended with a back-and-forth "Must Be Santa" performance that is part Christmas-y, and part terrifying. Do we smell a future Emmy nom?
Watch "Dramatic Christmas Carols" above, and watch The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon weeknights at 11:35/10:35c on NBC, streaming the next day on Peacock.
