Jay Leno makes surprise appearance on 'Tonight Show'

NEW YORK, Oct. 7 (UPI) -- Jay Leno returned to the set of The Tonight Show to aid his successor, Jimmy Fallon, during the late night program's opening monologue Tuesday night.

The 65-year-old Tonight Show alum stepped in front of the camera once again to the audience's surprise shortly after Fallon claimed he needed to be subbed-out after pulling a "hammy." Leno then confidently carried the monologue forward as he had previously done during his 22-year stint as host.

"The election is getting nasty," Leno began. "See, this Ralph Nader called Hillary Clinton a 'corporatists' and a 'militarist.' Isn't that unbelievable? Ralph Nader is still alive."

The comedian joked about Democrat candidate Martin O'Malley, who he says has two percent of support in the polls. "Two percent! He's been in the race for eight months and he's only tied with low-fat milk. That's not good," he said.

Then, Leno moved on to Republicans Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush and Donald Trump, throwing out quips about their intelligence and various feuds. "You know, a lot of people think that when the Republican feud begins to clear, it'll be between Jeb Bush and Donald Trump -- kind of like the race between the tortoise and the bad hair."

After joking about Barack Obama, Osama bin Laden and the U.S. economy, Fallon returned to add a few jests of his own before thanking his predecessor.

"The economy is so bad, 50 Cent just changed his name to Nickelback," Fallon said. "The economy is so bad Hillary Clinton wants people to look through her deleted e-mails to see if there's anything from that Nigerian prince. That's how bad it is right now! Let me tell you, the economy is so bad I saw Wolfgang Puck eating Chef Boyardee."

Leno was the host of NBC's The Tonight Show for 22 years. He left for a short time in 2009 to host The Jay Leno Show. and had his last episode on Tonight in February 2014. Jimmy Fallon took over later that month for his first episode as host on Feb. 24, 2014.