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Rahm Tells Jimmy Fallon Time To Pay Up and Bring 'Tonight Show' to Chicago

By  Josh McGhee and Ted Cox | September 16, 2014 8:13am | Updated on September 16, 2014 1:58pm

 Mayor Rahm Emanuel appeared on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" in March.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel appeared on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" in March.
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NBC

CHICAGO — It's time to pay up, Swimmy Fallon.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel and "The Tonight Show"'s Jimmy Fallon have been "beefin" for months, and now it's time for Fallon to make good on their most recent wager to bring his show to Chicago for the first time since 1998 if Chicago students exceeded their summer reading goal of 2.4 million books. (Fallon had sought a figure of 11 million.)

Emanuel and friends even created a YouTube video to remind Fallon of his promise.

In March, Emanuel trolled the late night host into an early morning ice bath in Lake Michigan for a good cause, the Polar Plunge. In exchange for taking the plunge, Emanuel appeared on "The Tonight Show," where they talked pizza and their dip into Lake Michigan among other things.

"It was cold that day," Fallon said. Responded Rahm: "Your insights are unbelievable."

"I went under the water and I saw bubbles come out of my mouth and I froze," Fallon told the mayor during the episode. "And I didn't really feel anything. I go, 'I might be dead.'"

"See, that's the difference between us," the mayor responded. "I kinda, like, I kicked in man. As soon as I went in, I said, 'I'm in. I'm out. I did my job.'"

But before Emanuel could leave the show he issued the most recent wager.

Well, the numbers are in. And as the mayor warned Fallon, "Don't ever bet against the kids of Chicago." Chicago kids read 2.7 million books over the summer, setting a new record, the mayor's office said.

The mayor said Tuesday he fully expects Fallon to bring the show to Chicago.

"I think Jimmy Fallon will be a man of his word and come here," he said during a news conference in East Garfield Park.

Emanuel also urged Chicagoans to campaign for the visit through the Twitter hashtag #TonightShowChi.

"Bringing your show here when it's about 82 degrees is much easier," Emanuel said Tuesday. "It's a lot easier to move the show than jumping in the lake."

Emanuel touted "Rahm's Readers" as part of the "Summer of Learning" project launched two years ago, with the intent to avoid students suffering an "academic slide" backward over summer vacation. He said that project has now been copied by Los Angeles, Pittsburgh and Dallas.

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