Kelly Rowland, Paulina Rubio In Talks To Join ‘X … 
Cannes: Latest Theft Affects China Film Group VP 
UPDATE: Yahoo Board OKs $1.1B Deal To Acquire Tumblr … 
‘Epic’ Toon Begins $14.5M Overseas Rollout 
Cannes: Sony Classics Wins Stateside Rights To Asghar … 
‘Fast & Furious 6′ Breaks Records In … 
Specialty Box Office: ‘Frances Ha’ Triumphs As … 
‘Saturday Night Live’ Season Finale Posts … 
‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ $164.5M Global: Lower … 
Cannes: Backup Media, Memento Bring Heat To Fest Helmer Jim … 
Cannes: Sundance Selects Acquires Dardenne Brothers’ … 
Cannes: Wrekin Hill Acquires U.S. On Gabriele … 
Bill Hader’s ‘SNL’ Stefon Farewell: Video 
Cannes: The Weinstein Co. Books ‘Suite … 
BBC Confirms ‘Doctor Who’ Season 8 
Finally, Cannes Dealing! Radius-TWC Nabs Director’s … 
Hammond On Cannes: Wet Fest’s Official Competition … 
‘Vampire Academy’ Adds ‘Modern … 
RATINGS RAT RACE: ‘Shark Tank’ Finale Up, … 
Cannes: Worldview Options Andrew Dominik’s Marilyn … 
UPFRONTS 2013: The Overachievers 
David Letterman, who’s never been shy about his feelings about Jay Leno, gives his old rival a classic back-handed compliment in his upcoming interview with Oprah Winfrey on her OWN program Oprah’s Next Chapter. “He’s an unusual fellow. I’ve never met anyone quite like Jay,” Letterman says in the released promo clip. “And I will say, and I’m happy to say, that I think he is the funniest guy I’ve ever known. Just flat out, if you go to see him do his nightclub act, just the funniest, the smartest, a wonderful observationist and very appealing as a comic. Therefore, the fact that he is also maybe the most insecure person I have ever known — I could never reconcile that.” Ouch! Letterman’s statement on Leno was actually in response to Winfrey’s question when the duo’s rivalry began (not when Leno got the Tonight Show gig according to Letterman), so we’ll presumably find that out. The interview, which comes on the heels of fellow latetnight comedian Jimmy Kimmel bashing Leno, airs January 6. Winfrey, Letterman and Leno have a history together — the trio did the famous Late Night With David Letterman Super Bowl promo, which aired at the height of NBC’s Leno-Conan debacle of 2010. (you watch it again below)
TV Editor Nellie Andreeva - tip her here.
Loading ...
Leno the most insecure? “Hello kettle, this is the pot. You’re black.” Read any of the recent books about the stand-up comedy scene in the 70s, as well as Bill Carter’s ‘The Late Shift’ and ‘The War for Late Night,’ and you’ll see there was/is plenty of insecurity with both Letterman and Leno.
Aw shucks those two are crazy about each other. It’s them against the world and Jimmy Kimmel.
Amen, Wanda.
Letterman And Oprah Trying To Hype Interview For Ratings On OWN.
That’s All, Folks.
Takes one to know one.
Well, that’s proof that Letterman is getting ready to retire. He’d never say anything remotely positive about Jay if he had to go head to head for another five years.
Having seen Jay’s show in Las Vegas years ago, I will say that it is not bad, especially if you dig jokes about old people trying to work VCRs. But I’d suggest putting Letterman on a lie detector and see if he really thinks Jay’s show is better than Steve Martin’s, George Carlin’s, Richard Pryor’s etc. I’d say there’s a 99.9999 percent probability that, like everything else he does, Letterman has some ulterior motive here. Of the 15 or so concerts I’ve seen by name comics I’d rank Jay’s about average.
Despite being a halfway decent nightclub comic, Jay manages to do the worst late-night talk show ever, save for Chevy Chase. Is that what Dave is actually intimating? Seems like it. While Jay’s concert act reportedly has held up, his talk show manages to get worse and worse every year. Does he even have writers, and who the hell are these people? Maybe Dave is delivering a message to Jay: “Your act is good. Your show reeks. Go do the former.”
I love it when Leno’s detractors call him the worst talk show host while conveniently ignoring two decades of ratings.
I don’t think you love it at all. Plus, why are those two things related? There’s lots of terrible stuff on TV that gets great ratings. Obviously calling it the worst late night show ever is ridiculous (Magic Johnson’s show was an abomination) but so is your assertion that ratings have anything to do with quality.
Kind of like the Kardashian’s ratings, right?
Dave is the King…it’s good to see him get the recognition he deserves
King of what? Second place?
He is, without doubt, the King of Late Night.
Elvis sells less than Justin Beiber. Elvis is still the king. Ratings are a small part if the story. Influencing other comedians, cultural prestige, and yes, just sheer comedy gold, count much more than ratings in the long run.
So,Letterman says Jay’s funny in the nightclubs. Maybe he should go back to the nightclubs. On The Tonight Show he is not funny-at all. It’s almost as if Leno’s still stuck in late 90′s or early 00′s. Same stupid crap over & over again! Can’t the guy come up with any new material? Fact is,Johnny Carson set a standard this Jay fellow never approached-not even close. Hey, I’d be insecure too if I was Jay. His insecurity probably stems from the fact that he knows he sucks! You’d think with all the money Nbc pays him-he could buy some new,current,& funny material.
Why doesn’t Leno do snide remarks about Letterman for 15 years straight?
Class? And likely letting the ratings do the talking for him.
If you wanna talk Jay’s ratings you may want to note that he’s way down since the Conan fiasco. His ratings in the only demo that matters, 18-49, have been barely edging out the also way-past-his-prime Letterman most of the time, although Letterman now wins occasionally. Leno used to get more than twice as many young viewers as Dave. Now they’re neck and neck. Both have been consistently losing to Nightline. Jon Stewart’s young demo ratings occasionally beat Leno AND HE’S ON COMEDY CENTRAL.
Had NBC known that Leno was going to post these kinds of so-so numbers, the network would not have brought him back. Zucker assumed he was going to get the big numbers he had pre-Conan, an assumption that partially cost Zucker his job.
Jay recently took something like a 50% cut in pay and was forced by NBC to lay off 25 staffers. That kind of thing doesn’t happen when the network is thrilled with the ratings.
The bottom line is that Leno’s numbers have been almost cut in half since Americans saw him for what he is, and that if you take away the elderly shut ins who are his main viewers now, his ratings look even worse.
Jay’s set up is not for comedy only. He is relaying the news plus putting his own remarks to what ever is current. I am sure Vegas & TV is totally different menu’s. I personally enjoy Jay’s l5 minutes in the beginning and I don’t agree at all that he is not secure. He is the most atuned Man out there!!!!
You guys are all missing the point in a big bad way. The only reason Letterman prefaced the insult with a compliment was to make the insult land harder. It makes Leno look even more pitiful.
No, it makes Letterman look pitiful. What a crabbed and biter man e is.
As backhanded compliments go, that one was very skillful. It’s almost an even-handed back-handed compliment, if such a thing was possible. The difference between Letterman and Leno is that Letterman has grown into a mature, intelligent man with a sense of perspective about where he has come from and where he is going, whereas Jay remains a deluded, narcissistic sociopath.
Hey, come on! Jay’s not deluded.
The first comment beat me to it. Dave Letterman is as insecure and neurotic (for a Hoosier) as they come. I know what he means about Jay’s act — at least what it once was: In the 8o’s in NYC, at the Bottom Line I (and others from the Late Night staff) were on the floor; Jay was as funny as a human being can be, and an already incredible, polished performer. Is his show now a shadow of that? Sure – so is Dave’s from the old 80′s NBC Late Night glory. The entire format is dated. But Dave has nerve calling into questions Jay’s sense of security; I remember when Dave couldn’t even look people in the eye. Jay fought for a show he felt was owed to him; Dave felt is was rightly his…and didn’t fight for it; assumed it was his, and he was floored. It was an epic drama…way back when. Now it’s old news. I wish Dave would just be gracious to someone he respects on a professional level and leave it at that. Jay has never commented about Dave’s character or psychology. Letterman is a great talent, but a limited one (Oscars anybody?). They both should retire and let people remember them at their best.
I watched Letterman’s Oscars monologue on Youtude recently. I’m not sure where the vitriol came from for his work that night because those jokes killed in that room. I can think of many Oscars shows where the host’s jokes weren’t going over as well as Dave’s.
Not true that ‘Jay has never commented about Dave’s character or psychology.’ During the Tonight Show fiasco of 2010, after Letterman had repeatedly skewered Leno on Late Night, Leno made a comment on his show about Letterman cheating on his wife. When Oprah later interviewed Leno she called him out for this comment (‘I thought that was beneath you, Jay’) in her typically high-handed, imperious manner.
Dave also figured that Johnny Carson had the final choice, but for some reason, that choice wasn’t communicated to the suits at NBC. From the moment he retired to the day he died, he made one cameo appearance on a late night show, and it was an episode of the Late Show where he handed a Top Ten List to Dave.
I am sure that the original proposal would be for Dave to host the Tonight Show in New York while Late Night would move to Los Angeles and be hosted by Jay Leno.
I know many are suggesting that Letterman has an ulterior motive here, but Letterman has LONG respected Jay’s ability as a standup (and he’s said as much in many interviews)… that’s why Jay used to be a frequent guest of Letterman’s old 12:30 NBC show back before Jay started subbing for Johnny Carson. And Jay IS a GREAT standup, he knows his room and plays to it VERY well… he’s just a mediocre TV host (because he’s super-uncomfortable doing interviews because it might reveal something about his own life). I think Dave’s spot-on with his assessment.
I know it’s cool to hate Jay Leno, but he’s very, very funny. His stand-up acts from Letterman’s show in the 80s were all hysterical. I don’t know Letterman or Leno, so I can’t speak to either’s personal feelings of security, but to deny either are not funny is to not understand comedy.
To claim that either, especially Jay, is still funny, leads me to believe you have not watched The Tonight Show for the past six or seven years.
Since Letterman incessantly badmouths Leno, it’s abundantly clear who’s the insecure one. And, many of you who are giving Letterman the high-5 are enabling Letterman’s insecurities about Leno and drinking the kool-aid–as if it’s cool to talk smack about Leno. It’s old, it’s played out, let’s keep this in 2012 and move the f-on.
Perfectly said! You nailed it!
Spoken like a “stand-up” man, Stan. I agree 100%.
Jay Leno reads jokes funny……David Letterman is a natural, a true wit. There is no comparison in my opinion.
I’ve never argued about Leno’s entertainment value; I used to watch the guy up until 2010, and I watched Letterman too. But after the 2010 Conan Late Night debacle, having read both of Bill Carter’s books, I just got addicted to the Late Night wars and read and watched everything I could about the subject, and the end result is that Leno is a shrew-scheming son-of-a-B. Everything Howard Stern (and now Jimmy Kimmel) say about him is seems all true.
I think a lot of the problem people have with Jay, myself included, is that he puts on such an act, that he’s such a nice guy, when he’s clearly not. And I know that there a lot of people in Hollywood who act the same way, but the for some reason with Leno, it’s different. I don’t know how or why, but it just is.
When pretty much all of your peers trash you publicly, I think it says a lot about a man. Jay has been trashed by Kimmel and Letterman in what, the past week and a half? In the past couple of years he’s been trashed, directly or indirectly, by Letterman, Kimmel, Ferguson, Conan O’Brien (WTH ever happened to Conan?), and Jon Stewart. I’m not sure about Colbert. Fallon can’t trash Leno for obvious reasons. Also, a number of working successful comics, Paton Oswald to name one, have criticized Jay severely. Can’t we agree that these guys, particularly the late night hosts, know more about what goes on than any of us, and they appear to hate Jay with a passion. What does that tell you?
It was wonderful to see the Kennedy Center Honors include David Letterman this year and I loved the tribute to him from Ray Romano, Tina Fey, and Jimmy Kimmel. You could feel the love and respect that comedians have for Dave–he is their Johnny Carson. Do you think Leno is going to get that award ever? Do you think comedians will publicly rally around Jay like they did Dave? Not going to happen.
In this case, Dave was asked a question by Oprah and he answered it–didn’t pull any punches. Sure, the guy is aloof and missing basic social skills, but he is a professional broadcaster who should have been given the Tonight Show, but he didn’t get it because he refused to campaign for it. I love the fact that he is getting all this recognition at this stage of his career. He is the comic voice of our generation and Leno is just a joke.
The real story here is the weirdness of the “Oprah clapping in an empty room” bump at the end. I hope she’s okay.
Talk about petty. Letterman has been squawking about this for years and years. Reminds me of when Leno actually took part in Letterman’s unfunny commercial and Letterman lambasted him for it. Letterman should go back to never doing interviews, because he’s starting to come across as pathetic.
anyone who thinks Jay Leno is “funny” has lost all credibility in my book, not that Letterman ever had much. Most people I know are funnier than Leno. In fact, watching Leno’s show is actually a 60-minute recess from laughter, insomuch that virtually any experience I have in my regular life is funnier than his program.
Some of my favorite Late Nite Letterman moments were when Jay came on as a guest. Jay would do a re-curring bit of eating a sub in the guest chair since he was so busy. It was funny partly just cause no one else thought to do it & partly cause it was true: he was doing mondays on johnny, touring most of the year, and doing many letterman shows. Jay was really funny. Dave was funny. And they were even funnier together.
Letterman gives ANOTHER back handed compliment to Leno AGAIN! SHOCKING! Well, no, not really. Letterman does the same thing repeatedly with most of his “jokes”, that sadly, it is so damn boring to watch. Give it 10 minutes and Kimmel will be saying almost the same words. Insecure, Dave? Check the mirror, that’s your face looking back, again……..
It is pathetic to see Letterman harping on this again. After the umpteenth attack, it starts to look sad. Clearly, Leno is Moby Dick to Letterman’s Ahab.
“All the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it.” – Herman Melville
Did these comments come together on a conference call? The comments and the commentators here (if they’re more than one or two people) are a deeply delusional, depraved, and repulsive group. Moby Dick? About late night television? Save the post-hypnotic suggestion for your pets.