N-B Links: Rural Bluffton couple appears on "The Tonight Show"

The applause and cheers drowned out any chuckles when rural Bluffton residents Travis and Courtney Peeper appeared on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” stage Monday night to celebrate their last names.

“Who can forget the ‘Butt-Peeper’ wedding,” Leno said, introducing them. “Say hello to the Butt-Peepers.”

Leno’s producers asked them and nine other couples to appear after selecting them from among hundreds of other couples, whose last names combine into humorous and risque phrases — such as Travis Peeper and Courtney Butt.

Each couple’s wedding announcement had debuted sometime earlier in Leno’s more than 20 years of shows as part of his “Headlines” segment, which chronicles and lampoons the mistakes and bizarre phrases printed in newspapers across the country.

But for his last “Headlines” segment ever — Leno broadcasts his final show Thursday — producers wanted the people behind the paper for a “Best Wedding Couples” segment, and they paid for the Peepers’ travel expenses and accommodations, and an additional $500, to arrange their fame.

Watch the segment here, and learn more in the Saturday, Feb. 1, and Tuesday, Feb. 4, News-Banner.