Tig Notaro stops back by The Tonight Show to finally ID the mystery celebrity on her flight
And everyone says the internet is only a tool for evil
TV News Tig Notaro
On Monday night’s Tonight Show, comedian Tig Notaro sought out viewers’ help. Toting along a surreptitiously snapped photo of a red-haired woman who’d been seated next to the One Mississippi star on a recent airline flight, Notaro told Jimmy Fallon how baffled she’d been by the constant parade of glowing adulation sent the way of her seat mate.
Not that the responsibly masked passenger didn’t necessarily deserve such effusive, flight-long praise from people exclaiming, “Even with a mask on, I know that hair,” and the like. Or maybe she didn’t. Notaro simply had no clue. As comic and unlikely action hero Notaro told Fallon on Monday, she spent the entire flight enlisting the online help of her wife and her online, “celebrity-obsessed” friends in trying to figure out just who the hell this auburn-haired figure of incessant fan worship might be—all to no avail.
Notaro even came up empty once she engaged her neighbor in a brief exchange to alert the mystery woman about a spider on her leg. (Not that Notaro only mentioned the spider in order to obtain another clue or anything, but the woman’s grateful response still gave Notaro nothing to go on.)
Well, thanks to Fallon posting Notaro’s nonchalantly snapped photo on Twitter (“Well, I guess you also aired you show,” deadpanned Notaro), the mystery of the redheaded, curly-haired possible celebrity has been solved. Appearing on Tuesday kitted out in full winter-wear for another trip to the airport, the busy Notaro sat down for the second night in a row with the happy-to-see-her Fallon.
Taking off her flight-ready neck pillow and setting aside her wheelie-bag and carryon, Notaro, reminding everyone of her nagging obsession with her brush with supposed fame, broke the news that the nation’s Twitter snoops had collectively engaged in a game of “Hey, it’s that lady from that thing.” The resulting consensus being that Notaro’s cross-country partner had been—wait for it—Rebecca Wisocky.
Notaro, famous for taking a weird bit all the way to its often eccentric destination, made this two-appearance, one costume change late-night anecdote wort the wait. “America’s sweetheart!,” Notaro pumped up the subject of her investigative efforts, gamely noting that veteran actress and former Devious Maids antagonist Wisocky is currently co-starring on CBS’ Ghosts (9 p.m. on Thursdays), which, evidently, a fair number of frequent fliers are watching with rapt attention.
33 Comments
Seriously, I thought it was gonna be Bernadette Peters or something, not the female version of Stephen Tobolowsky.
To be fair, if I was seated next to Stephen Tobolowsky, I’d probably ask him which of the several movies and TV shows he was on was his favorite.I have an adoration of consistent working actors.
Wouldn’t it be great to end up next to him on an international flight, and be able to ask him if he could just use his voice as his passport?
Sneakers reference!!! You’re my new best friend!!
Whenever he pops up in something, every single time I think “hey, it’s Werner Brandes!”
Kinja is borked for me, so I can’t give you the star this deserves.
Borked as hell for me today too, but I was able to at least see and acknowledge your attempt at starring.
He’d probably refer to you to a piece he did with a pop culture website conducted by Phil Marris or something like that.
Yeah, I’m mildly obsessed with character actors, and ST is one of the greats.
I once asked him a bunch of questions on my old podcast: https://www.dropbox.com/s/lse6cimhm9tt35z/TYF%21%20%239_%20Mr.%20Stephen%20Tobolowsky%20with%20MIKE%20DOUGHTY%20and%20TED%20TRAVELSTEAD.mp3?dl=0
Maybe people thought it was Connie Britton or something.
Is she funny or something?
“Celebrity”.
I don’t even understand what this story was about.
When Big showed the picture, I was like, that’s the actress from that show I watched the other night that has a great cast but was pretty terrible.And it totally was.
I love Rose McIver, but the original UK Ghosts is better.
Charlotte Ritchie FTW
Ghosts is really bad. The only thing I laughed at in my head was the comment about Hamilton. I think it would be better without the husband and wife.
Shoulda been Taylor Dane.
Who?
Just from the headline, was hoping for Taylor Dayne
You are not going to believe who is sitting behind us!
I was praying it was Taylor Dayne.
That really would have been the only acceptable answer. Anything else would be “fine” at best.As it is Tig Notaro though — still funny.
I’ve somehow never heard this before, and now it is my new favorite thing.
Excellent opportunity to share her series “Under a Rock” where she tries to guess who celebrities are. The James Van Der Beek episode is so sweet and funny! Would love another season of this, even if Amazon doesn’t cough up the sponsorship $$$ again.
I thought it was Tilda Swinton. She can be quite the chameleon.
Plot twist: she was the co-pilot.
Tilda was also the one carrying you when there was only one set of footprints.
It says something about how much I like Tig Notaro that I still watched the video clip given that I absolutely loathe Jimmy Fallon.
If you guys aren’t listening to her “Don’t Ask Tig” podcast, you really should give it a try. Each episode is only about 40 minutes. Very doable to catch up.