Israel’s Foreign Ministry botches Jimmy Fallon’s hashtag game

Ministry tries to play along with late-night host’s online antics, but only succeeds in creating confusion

JTA — Israel’s Foreign Ministry tried to impress viewers of Jimmy Fallon’s show by participating in one of his Twitter hashtag games this week, but its joke fell flat. And the late-night host added to the confusion.

The NBC show has a recurring segment that asks viewers to use a certain hashtag and come up with humorous tweets. Wednesday’s was “#DescribeAMovieBadly” — participants were to sum up the plot of a movie or show in a counterintuitive way.

For example, one read “Harry Potter — 11-year-old orphan gets kidnapped, sent to magic camp, and ends up murdering one of his counselors.”

The @Israel account, which is run by the Foreign Ministry, failed to note any movie or show in its response to Fallon, declaring simply “Fauda meets Edward Scissorhands meets West Side Story.”

Fallon apparently took it to be about “Fauda,” the hit Israeli thriller about counterterrorism agents, which the tweet mentioned first.

“Let’s help them out on this because I don’t understand this one,” Fallon said. “I think it’s a show, or a movie, like an Israeli show, so I don’t really know if this is funny or not. But let’s laugh at it.” He started to read the tweet, which begins with “Fauda,” and some in the audience cheered.

“Do you know ‘Fauda’?” he asked, to more cheers.

He showed the tweet, gave a slightly confused look and said, “I love it, thank you for playing.” Still apparently stumped, he asked the audience, “Did it make sense?” before moving on.

A different account run by the Foreign Ministry later cleared up the mystery, explaining that the tweet mistakenly omitted the film it was describing: “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan,” a 2008 Adam Sandler comedy about an Israeli Mossad agent-turned-New York City barber.

If you really want to #DescribeAMovieBadly, don't include the name of the movie in your tweet.

For those of you still in suspense, the movie was Don't Mess with the Zohan.

Thanks for the shoutout @jimmyfallon!

???? https://t.co/5h7kfRzsbn pic.twitter.com/FcQVZYTyR7

— Israel ישראל (@Israel) April 16, 2021