A chair that normally seats the likes of celebrities like Jon Hamm or Scarlett Johansson will be occupied by a Little Rock museum employee Monday night.
Kevin Delaney, director of visitor experience at the Museum of Discovery in Little Rock, will be demonstrating science experiments on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
Delaney said the museum got a call in January from Tonight Show staff who said they were wanting to introduce a science element to the show.
“They started looking around for science centers around the country, and they said they had contacted about 50 or 60 [centers] and they really liked our sense of humor,” Delaney said.
After a series of phone conversations, Delaney was invited to do a test show with Fallon before he officially replaced Jay Leno.
The test show was a success, and the museum staff was told to await a phone call telling them when Delaney would be on Fallon’s show.
“We were told a soft date of later in May, but they told us it may be sooner,” Delaney said.
On April 22, Delaney found out he would be flying to New York City again to be on the air with Fallon.
“I’m just looking forward to share some of the fascinating things we share here with a much wider audience,” he said. “Jimmy Fallon is just a blast. I’m looking forward to the fun.”
As visitor experience director, Delaney said his job is to make sure everyone who comes to the museum has a great time.
“I work with the programming staff, do science experiments [and] theater shows,” he said.
Delaney also goes on the air with Little Rock television station KATV every other week to share experiments that can be seen at the museum on a daily basis.
Delaney’s Tonight Show segment will air at 10:30 p.m. Monday on NBC.