Bryce Harper either cheated at ‘Catchphrase’ or he’s just terrible at it
Catchphrase is a staple on The Tonight Show, and whenever it’s played, it’s mostly incident-free -- mostly, until you play with Bryce Harper. On Monday’s episode, there were two instances in which Harper completely messed up, and yet was given a pass because no one called him out for it.
1. Round 2 -- the catchphrase: “S’mores”
Harper: “Uh, campfire. What you eat at a campfire.”
Fallon: “Marshmallows.”
Harper: “Yes.”
No, Bryce. Marshmallows are ingredients in s’mores, but that was not the catchphrase.
2. Round 3 -- the catchphrase: “Eager Beaver”
It’s at this point where Harper struggled to figure out how to convey “Eager Beaver” to Fallon; he even asked if he can pass. Fallon told him to “go for it,” and here’s what happened:
Fallon: “Is it an action?”
Harper: “No, it’s an animal.”
Fallon: “It’s a dog, it’s ... ”
Harper: “They build dams.”
Fallon: “It’s what? Oh beaver!”
Harper: “Boom!”
Gigi Hadid was stunned and looked at the card, and was immediately livid because she knew that was an undeserved point; her teammate Andy Samberg also looked defeated by the end of the game after finding out what had happened. Meanwhile, Fallon ran around in pure joy because he’d beaten Samberg and Hadid, thinking that Harper was running out the clock and playing dumb on purpose, when really that was a tainted victory for both of them.
Most people will say Harper cheated at Catchphrase, and maybe he did. Maybe he knew the rules and knew that no one he was playing with would really know what was on his cards, and he exploited both of those aspects. But I’m inclined to believe that he’s just bad at Catchphrase and nerves got to him. He immediately assumed “marshmallows” equaled “s’mores,” and struggled to convey “Eager Beaver” out loud, and probably thought if Fallon said one part of the clue that that counted.
When Fallon interviewed Hadid later in the show, he conceded that he and Harper shouldn’t have won because of those mistakes, and ultimately crowned Hadid and Samberg as the winners. If there’s any lesson to be learned here, it’s that you shouldn’t play Catchphrase with Bryce Harper.
