About

Shocked Cartoon Jimmy Fallon is a reaction image and series of memes based on a scene from Smiling Friends in which late-night TV host Jimmy Fallon reacts with shock after Mr. Frog makes a racist comment during an interview on The Tonight Show. The scene comes from the second episode of the series, which aired in January 2022. It became the subject of memes over the following years, often as a way to react with shock to a post.

Origin

On January 9th, 2022, Smiling Friends season one, episode two aired. In one scene, Mr. Frog goes on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Fallon asks him what the worst part of working on his show was, and he says something racist, resulting in a shocked expression from Fallon.

One of the earliest known memes to use the scene was posted to the /r/SmilingFriends^[1] subreddit by Redditor u/Kingodies on August 11th, 2022, in which Mr. Frog has been edited to resemble The Flash, the post titled, "Ezra Miller going on Jimmy Fallon to apologize for his latest crime spree," garnering over 3,300 upvotes in three years.

Spread

Memes using the scene became increasingly popularized over the following years, with many focusing on Jimmy Fallon's shocked expression.

For example, on April 12th, 2024, Redditor u/invicta047 posted a meme to the /r/Gamingcirclejerk^[2] subreddit that gained over 220 upvotes in a year.

On July 15th, 2025, X^[3] user @HubPointless posted the image of shocked cartoon Fallon in response to a Stephen King tweeting about the Jeffrey Epstein client list, which read, "The Epstein client list is real. So is the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus," garnering over 179,000 likes and 7,600 reposts in a week.

The post was screenshotted and reposted to the /r/196^[4] subreddit on July 16th, garnering over 5,900 upvotes in six days. It was posted to the /r/YMS^[5] subreddit that same day, titled, "Well, now we know what inspired him to put in the child scene in It," garnering over 1,700 upvotes in six days.

On July 17th, X^[6] user @cartoonshi used the reaction image to react to a post sharing the trailer for Genndy Tartakovsky's movie Fixed, garnering over 17,000 likes in five days.

On July 18th, 2025, X^[7] user @fambramb posted the whole scene under the caption, "Just watched superman," as a reaction to a previous post made by them reading, "Going to watch superman brb," garnering over 17,000 likes in four days.

On July 21st, Redditor u/buttermilkmoses reposted the version of the meme about the Stephen King tweet to the /r/SmilingFriends^[8] subreddit, titling the post, "Good meme format," garnering over 5,900 upvotes in a day.

Various Examples

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Search Interest

External References