Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and Jimmy Fallon recited every Mass. town on ‘The Tonight Show’

Celebs

The trio did pretty well, although “Winchendon” proved challenging for the Tonight Show host.

It’s worth noting that advertisements on “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” are estimated to go for as much as $50,000 per 30-second spot. So we should probably be grateful (incredulous? vaguely perplexed?) that Fallon would recruit his pals Matt Damon and Ben Affleck to devote half a million dollars in air time to a bit so Massachusetts-centric it probably left the entire rest of the country viscerally annoyed.

Yes, for an excruciating five minutes on Tuesday night’s show, Fallon, Damon, and Affleck appeared in a clip entitled “Three Guys from Boston Say Every Town and City in Massachusetts,” in which they did just that. (Of course, Damon and Affleck are from Cambridge and Fallon is from upstate New York, so there was some real method acting involved here.)

It went, well, pretty much exactly as you might imagine, with a few hiccups: Affleck seemed stunned that there’s a Mass. town named Peru, we’re pretty sure “Sandisfield” had to be dubbed in later, and “Winchendon” really threw Fallon for a loop. (The third time was the charm for that one.) The bit lived and died based on how funny you find the notoriously tortuous Massachusetts town names when they’re pronounced with an exaggerated Boston accent. Turns out … marginally funny?

Maybe the key is keeping the list of towns more manageable — the concept was used to frankly hilarious effect in the 2021 Hyundai “Smaht Pahk” commercial with Chris Evans, John Krasinski, and Rachel Dratch, and in Seth Meyers’ “Boston Accent” movie trailer. (Our readers have also done a pretty good job of showing off their accents as well.) The good news is that The Tonight Show has posted a sped-up version of Tuesday night’s clip, in case you find 2:55 to be a more palatable time frame.

And if the YouTube comments are any indication, Massholes certainly appreciated the effort: “As someone raised in MA, I spent the whole video doing the Leo DiCaprio screen point,” wrote @NateWild, and @Pokebrawler09 commented, “Just hearing Matt Damon say Methuen made my heart smile.” Shout out to @russellrussellrussell and @RSoxNo1, who suggested the news stations use this clip going forward to announce weather-related school closings.

Meanwhile, Damon and Affleck also appeared on Fallon’s couch for a 12-minute interview segment promoting their new Netflix movie, “The Rip.” There was precious little Boston content to be found in that, unfortunately, although Damon did share a story about the time he and Mark Wahlberg were being “A little Boston, a little obnoxious” at a Celtics/Lakers game and were told by Lakers coach Phil Jackson to “Sit down and shut the f— up!” One imagines Phil Jackson might have had the same response to the cities-and-towns bit.

You can watch that interview segment below:

Peter Chianca

General Assignment Editor

Peter Chianca, Boston.com’s general assignment editor since 2019, is a longtime news editor, columnist, and music writer in the Greater Boston area.