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Jay Leno keeps ‘em coming so here are tonight’s. “Doctors in Canada were shocked after pulling a three-inch knife blade from the back of a 32-year-old-man. The knife had been in there for three years! Imagine that, the guy had a knife in his back for three years. He must’ve worked at NBC too. I was stunned by that.” And then there was this: “Have you heard about this alleged feud that I’m having with NBC? I think it’s going to be OK. This is real: I had dinner last night with a bunch of NBC executives. To make it up to me, what they did, they are sending my wife and I on an all expenses paid Carnival cruise. How about that? So it looks like it’s going to be OK. Fantastic!”
Related: Speculation On NBC’s Leno-Fallon Transition Intensifies
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The home’s not that bad, grandpa.
If those are the jokes he’s telling, it’s no wonder he’s being ousted. #notfunny
I laughed. Granted the one about the knife was cringeworthy, but I loved the one about the NBC executives sending Jay on a cruise. Seriously, Jay Leno should be supported at NBC at all costs.
ba-zing!
I’m not a Leno fan, but it’s always funny to read about someone crapping on NBC.
Takes some major league balls for him to make jokes about being stabbed in the back.
Thank you! Your words tumbled out of my mouth. Not more to be said.
If Leno is implying that NBC has stabbed him in the back…well, that’s just rich.
What a moron. He is talking about being stabbed in the back but he forgot that that is exactly what he did to Conan.
Conan? What about Letterman and Carson? (and those are just the ones I know about). Leno can talk about NBC stabbing him in the back because he’s the foremost expert in the field.
Is this the same Conan who told NBC if they didn’t let Leno go then Conan would leave? Or the one who couldn’t get the same ratings that Leno did when he hosted The Tonight Show? Or the one who threw a dummy spit when told he would bump his show to 12.05? (which was his own damn fault for not putting a clause in the contract that stated NBC couldn’t reschedule his program). You may not like Jay Leno, but the entertainment industry is a BUSINESS, not a cornerstone of fairness: it isn’t the Olympics where you can judge who is the FASTEST or the STRONGEST at something. Leno is a moneywinner and Conan’s perpetual inability to deal with this is why Leno’s now hosting The Tonight Show … and Conan’s still sulking.
Alan, Yours is the only post in here that speaks the truth.
No. Conan was going to leave NBC when his contract was up. NBC didn’t like that so they are the ones who shoved Jay out of the way for Conan. Jay allowed it to happen because he’s a chickensh*t. He could have put up a fight. He didn’t.
Conan wasn’t the one who didn’t get good ratings. Local NBC affiliates news programs were also losing in ratings and that was because of the extreme weak lead-in to the news – which was what again? Yep, The Jay Leno Show.
Conan may have indeed demanded The Tonight Show from Leno and NBC, but Leno did the same thing to Carson. I don’t know how all you Leno supporters keep forgetting that. And what, Carson wasn’t the king of late night when Leno and his manager Helen Kushnick signed a deal behind Carson and Letterman’s back with NBC to take over The Tonight Show? That doesn’t make him a weasel, but when Conan did it (and not behind anyone’s back), he’s the asshole?
And what Alan B., were Conan (and his reps) supposed to really think that NBC would have the balls to consider moving The Tonight Show up a half hour later, the same Tonight Show that has been a staple in the American television diet for how many decades now? Nobody would have ever considered putting that sort of thing into the contract. You must work for Jay, because like him, he didn’t seem to mind to much about moving it either. And that is why he fails as host of the Tonight Show. Not because of his comedy, not because of his ratings or his money. Because he has no respect for the Tonight Show. Carson didn’t like him, it was obvious. No “good luck, Jay” when he left. Let’s not forget Carson’s secretly writing jokes for Letterman, and even making his last television appearance on the Late Show; not the Tonight Show. It’s those little things that truly show what type of a person Jay truly is, and how he continues to act as if The Tonight Show is his show.
But as much as I would like to see Leno get kicked out the door, it really doesn’t any make sense. The only real reason I can see NBC wanting him gone so bad is that his Tonight Show is just too damn expensive to keep it operating that way it is now. Or maybe this current batch of NBC executives (and Comcast) have a personal grudge with Leno. When Conan took over, he had 16 years of experience and a following. I know Jimmy Fallon is popular, but is he really as popular as Conan was when he made the deal in 2005? Conan was getting offers from other networks, that’s why NBC made the deal in the first place, to keep him. Are any other networks making offers to Fallon? Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against the Fallon, but it just feels way too early for him to be considered as host for the Tonight Show. Is it possible NBC has something else entirely up their sleeves?
“You must work for Jay, because like him, he didn’t seem to mind to much about moving it either. And that is why he fails as host of the Tonight Show. Not because of his comedy, not because of his ratings or his money. Because he has no respect for the Tonight Show.”
‘Respect’ for The Tonight Show? I don’t work for Leno, but I believe that the reason why The Tonight Show was iconic was because of Carson. We repeatedly hear about this prestige associated with the show, as if it were the title or the timeslot or the format that made it a great show. No, it was the PEOPLE that made it a popular entertainment. The way Conan and co. speak about the set, you’d assume it were the HOLY LAND and that the skits were as important to American history as the constitution. Sheesh. These talk show hosts are glorified court jesters, not reporters or politicians. They make us laugh, that’s it, yet we hear protestations about the sanctity of … a talk show. Wow.
This is a BUSINESS, and I don’t understand why anyone else should be blamed if Conan made bad BUSINESS decisions. The world doesn’t owe the likes of Conan O’Brien or Jay Leno a thing, yet – the way Conan speaks about the incident – you would have thought that the NBC execs had orphaned him or something.
People seem to forget that when Conan took over, Leno hadn’t actually left. He still had a show a little more than an hour before the Tonight Show. I’m not sure about you, but most people tend to watch about one late night talk show a night. The Jay Leno Show was terrible (and I was a big Leno fan at the time), and people who watched NBC had their fill of talk shows for the night.
When Conan took over, Leno still had a show airing before him. Nothing except the time slots had changed. And then despite the Jay Leno Show tanking horribly in the ratings, it was Conan who would be getting demoted.
Have you forgotten about the Jay Leno Show at ten?
I’m not convinced that Conan is the greatest talk show host, but as the new person in charge of The Tonight Show, he had to deal with the unusual task of having competition within his own network, as Leno resumed his old shtick for his fans even before Conan’s Tonight Show could find its proper pace (ratings had also dropped down in the first months when Leno took over Carson, transition always takes time).
Leno is a guy who’s despised by most of the entertainment industry. When Kimmel attacked him a few months ago, almost nobody came to his defense. This isn’t only about the backstabbing accusations. Leno still has a few supporters, like Jerry Seinfeld, but he’s being regarded as the incarnation of bland, safe, smug and harmless comedy, while everybody agreed he was a really great comedian before he started hosting The Tonight Show. And even if he can also show some kindness in a few situations, he’s also one of the most self-interested guys in the industry.
The backstabbing jokes aren’t that accurate. If he stops hosting The Tonight Show next year, he will be 65, while Carson retired at 66, and his contract will simply be not renewed. The situation isn’t even close to what O’Brien endured, and nobody heard a single joke from Leno then about the NBC backstabbing.But, now that he’s the target, he’s strangely sensitive to corporate interference…
Alan B., I have no tolerance for Leno, but I also think that Conan is glib, obnoxious, unfunny and basically not a good host. When he was younger, he was every bit as ambitious as Leno before ‘Tonight.’ But in Conan’s defense, how can you blame him for not putting a clause in his contract about rescheduling? This is one of those criticisms that is easy to make only in retrospect. Blame Conan’s lawyers, if you’re going to blame anyone. But the truth is that the idea of moving ‘Tonight’ was unprecedented, so did not occur to anyone before NBC threatened to do just that. Oh, and as for the entertainment industry being a ‘business,’ Conan’s early ratings for ‘Tonight’ were higher than Leno’s are now. The problem with the Conan/Leno conflict is that absolutely nothing is black and white (and blind loyalty to one or the other side is just dumb). That is something that interested observers would do well to keep in mind.
You’re right television is a business.
That’s why Leno is going. NBC wants to cut costs on late night and the easiest and leasy painful way to do it is to replace Leno with Fallon and create a much leaner Late Night show. Fallon could get lower ratings than Leno and it would STILL make NBC more money than the status quo.
It helps that Comcast wants rid of Leno because he’s brand poison. TV is a business, but the Leno/Conan affair annoyed a lot of viewers and it’s a daily reminder of the idiocy of the Zucker era.
Leno isn’t exactly brand poison and the ratings show that situation. What is happening here is that NBC is trying to get rid of Leno because of one thing only, and that one thing is his age. The only problem is that he has to be pushed out to the point that he could be fired. NBC can’t buy out his contract like they did to Conan.
As for NBC, this will backfire on the network once Jay and Conan make nice. I can see that happening soon.
Anonymous is right, Leno is brand poison. Do you realize how much his ratings have dropped since before Conan was forced out. A LOT more than any other talk show’s ratings, if you’d care to try and make the argument that all TV is down. Jay’s ratings are down because he alienated one helluva lotta people.
You think America gives a crap about a sandbox fight between multimillionaire crybabies over a talk show. Get out of your bubble, navel gazer. Go outside and get some air. People want the one who best entertains them and they have picked Jay Leno. Conan is terrible and Letterman threw in the towel decades ago and morphed into a scowling bitterton.
If you say people don’t want a reminder of the Zucker era, well guess what? They’re getting a quick ride in reverse to the Zucker era with the return of the ruinous “managing for margins,” dumping bargain basement tv on our airwaves because they are incompetents who can’t succeed so they monetize failure. NBC is becoming a parasite feeding off us while giving nothing in return.
If anything, savvy people will be turned off by Fallon because he will be a symbol of “managing for margins.” Others will be turned off simply because Fallon is wrong for the job and his show is subpar. Those boys squabbling over the Tonight show should be upset about what’s happening because if they value the Tonight Show institution so much it’s dying a slow death with this latest move.
NBC/Comcast is cementing its future as a 5th rate cable channel and thumbing its nose at tv viewers. Hilarious they’re upset about the jokes – they think people don’t notice the once treasured network is a crap factory?
You’re probably one of those who think Conan is subversive. If you think Leno was a corporate lapdog, wait until the pablum from Fallon. You’re going to be the guy on here squawking about it 2 years from now. The other networks will soon follow like a spreading cancer because we have guys running things now who have no love of television married to their love of money. They might as well be selling widgets and should be, but they want the glam of tv while killing its luster.
You’re so fixated on weirdo Leno hate, that you can’t see the forest for the trees. If you are a tv lover, then you should mourn what’s happening because NBC is falling off the cliff and there’s no Grant Tinker around this time to save it.
You can write as many paragraphs as you want and call me all kinds of names, but it doesn’t change the facts.
Comcast want Leno out. Fact. Comcast see Leno’s continued presence on NBC as a problem. Fact. NBC will make as much money without Leno even if there’s a significant ratings drop. Fact.
1. To the guy who keeps insisting Comcast sees Leno as “poison” because of Conan and that it’s a “fact,” provide a link to substantiate this “fact.”
2. There’s a difference between how Leno took over and how Conan took over.
When Leno took over Tonight, NBC execs wanted Carson out and had already been planning his exit.
When Conan staged his coup, NBC execs hadn’t wanted Leno out and hadn’t been planning his exit.
If Jay Leno were some sort of sorcerer who has NBC cast under his spell, he could’ve avoided being pushed out by Conan in the first place and again now.
You sound like the guy who washes/upkeeps Jay’s cars. If you call what you say the truth, tell Jay in his face, and even he would laugh at you. The guy is late night garbage. Losing those paychecks are the fuel for his bitterness.
At least Conan cared enough about keeping the integrity of The Tonight Show by keeping it in it’s traditional time slot instead of letting NBC move it to 12:05am. Leno had to know being the tonight show lead-in would hurt the franchise…gee, who is the bigger person?
And that’s only one reason people in the industry don’t like Jay.
Jay Leno stabbed nobody in the back. NBC stabbed him in the back by forcing him to give up the Tonight Show and is trying to stab him in the back again.
Other people stabbed in the back by NBC
Conan O’Brien: When he was forced to move The Tonight Show to 12:05 AM so Jay can have a 30 minute show at 11:35 PM.
Johnny Carson: Forced to retire early by NBC, this is exactly what is happening to Leno.
David Letterman: Stabbed in the back by NBC who let Leno have The Tonight Show which broke an agreement that would have given David Letterman the said show when Carson retires.
Not entirely accurate… Johnny Carson wasn’t forced out by NBC. GE General Manager Bob Wright was friend’s with Carson and despised the idea of NBC even considering the idea of forcing the man out. The real pressure came from Leno’s manager, Helen Kushnick. She was secretly tipping off the press and trades about how Johnny was on his way out. Carson didn’t want to put up a fight with the Network or Leno, because that’s just the kind of guy he was.
And to all the other posts about Conan’s ratings and the Jay Leno show ratings; let’s not forget that when Jay took over the 10:00 o’clock spot, all the local NBC news across the country dropped 25-50%.
Ed, you keep putting false words into the mouths of executives.
Wright hated the idea of LETTERMAN walking out and that is from your Late Shift oracle. Wright felt bad about not asking Carson’s opinion of who should succeed him, not about Carson leaving. Carson refused to give a vote.
Again from the book, NBC execs had wanted Carson out, and the planted story forced things out in the open. When Leno’s manager planted the story (which Leno knew nothing about – again from the book) NBC did not put up a fight for Carson. Carson resigned not because “that’s the kind of guy he was” but because he was furious at NBC for wanting him gone and for not asking his opinion about succession, and humiliated by his fall from power. Carson told Letterman if a network mistreats him, he walks, and told Letterman to walk away from the Tonight show offer.
Leno is a scumbag. You reap what you sow. See you later. Team Coco!!
Leno’s a weasel, but so is Conan. Conan refused to sign a new deal in 2004 unless Leno was pushed out. Convenient how the “Team Coco” fans (does anyone really say that anymore?) seem to forget that.
Also, Conan specifically said he wanted to beat Letterman and host that show longer.
Stabbed in the back? Is he friggin’ kidding? Mr. It’s Yours Now I’m Back? You got five more years, now it’s tie to go. Not quite sure why you’re goin’, but you’re goin’.
Does playing a victim supposed to make people side with him? To me, it just shows what a complete weasel he is.
Remember what Letterman said about Leno: very talented BUT very insecure.
You would feel insecure as well if somebody was trying to stab you behind the back by giving your show to somebody else, and you are not ready to give up that show.
He is now trying to make the world feel bad for him. Yet a couple years ago he played the golden boy to the network as they did exactly this to Conan. What a piece of crap this guy is.
You know the NBC execs should concentrate on good news and entertainment programs. Leno isn’t wrong.
Har!
NBC should be ashamed of themselves for stabbing Jay in the back. If they had any integrity at all they’d stab him in the front on Live TV during The Tonight Show, they should run out from behind the curtain and stab Jay in his chest the same way the Roman Senators stabbed Julius Caesar. As Jay falls to the floor with his dying breath he could ask, “Et tu, Greenblatt?”
Conan hardly got a fair shot because the previous host got a time slot right before his. He did not get the undivided attention as THE NBC late night host from guests, viewers or even commercial sponsors. Fallon is a bit lame IMO, and I think we all missed out on Conan going to TBS.The NBC execs are equally dumb the handling of this, but at least Conan got a big payday to pay his troops and himself. I have stopped watching Leno, and most likely won’t watch Fallon. I think Craig Ferguson would kill in a prime slot. Dude is pretty funny and frankly I can’t stay up that late to watch him anymore, and no one should be DVR’ing late shows.
Is that stuff supposed to be funny? Stabbed in the back? Seriously? Dude. Take early retirement. It’s starting to stink of the early signs of dementia.
Although I’m one all for Jimmy Fallon to replace Jay…Why do so many still blame Leno for Conan’s Failure, O’Brien was just a victim of NBC’s bad executive decisions. If you recall, Conan was promised the Tonight show in a earlier contract renewal (via Jeff Zucker) well when that contract was up, he was walking if he didn’t get “Tonight Show”. So (NBC’s Ben Silverman) gave it to him to avoid him jumping to another network. At the same time, NBC gave Jay 10pm to keep him (and to save $$ from low rated scripted programming). This was the problem, America got their late night fill 90 minutes early and went to bed. Thereby, torpedoing any potential ratings success for Conan’s Tonight show. So in short, it was NBC’s scheduling and keeping current employees on contract to blame for O’Brien’s Failure NOT Leno. Jay was just doing what his employer requested of him. So give Jay Leno a break and let him go quietly into the sunset (or to another network). Jay deserves a decent goodbye after 20 years of service.
P.S.
Remember NBC has never listen to “viewer opinion”, in 1992 the King’s Pick was Letterman but that didn’t happen. Because it was said, NBC wanted somebody that was accessible for promotional appearances etc. etc. Jay (the fill-in host) was and David had always been reclusive when off camera, as he still is today.
“…sending my wife and I”? How about “my wife and me”? Just fucking ignorant. Also not funny. But then, the last time he was funny was … Probably back in the day when students were still taught the difference between objective and subjective humors, and other handy skills, like roasting brontosauruses over an open fire.
OK, Grammarian, that would be brontosauri, then, you genius.
Haters can hate but most of America thinks Jay Leno is funny. NBC execs are idiot dicks who don’t know how to handle transitions gracefully. Team Jay!
I don’t want to live in an America that thinks Jay Leno is funny.
I do not believe “most of America thinks Jay Leno is funny.” For some, his show is merely part of their dull 11:30 PM routines. His monologues help them drift off to sleep and they like that. But his comedy is very low quality. I would even say that most people I know are funnier than Jay Leno.
Which make them all toothless, boring idiots who are amused by crap like Leno and Madagascar 3!
Jay should have been allowed to go to ABC in 2009 but NBC was afraid to let him go because he would have won a three way race so they decided to keep him thereby killing Conan’s chances to succeed. Conan would have eventually caught up to Letterman and overtaken him. Jay realizes this, if back in ’92 Johnny had stayed on at NBC and done a 10 pm show then nobody would have watched Jay and he’d have gone down in flames.
Johnny had the good sense to exit gracefully but Leno wasn’t allowed to do that nor did he have the confidence to do it. Jay decided he’d stick around in the hope that Conan would fail and that’s exactly what happened. Jeff Zucker is solely to blame for this ongoing fiasco. Zucker destroyed NBC in primetime and he screwed up late night as well.
At this point they should pay Leno to go away they should write him a check for 25 million and let him leave a year early. Keeping Jay on until October 2014 is a big mistake. If they are so confident in Fallon they should want Jimmy to take over 11:30 starting in September.
Jay probably did stick around on purpose but he was still under contract and it was Conan who had deliberately pushed him out (just like Conan pushed out Lopez.) Let’s not kid ourselves that all these guys aren’t competitive and that they have some sort of collegial club. If that nothing burger Kimmel loves Letterman so much, then he wouldn’t be competing head to head with him. They all look out for themselves.
Conan failed on his own. When Leno was building the Tonight Show he always had his skill as a stand up, but Conan was a cartoon writer. He has never been a good performer or particularly funny beyond the 1st time you hear him do his cartoon voice – much less the bazillionth time. The 10 pm show didn’t do him in as people weren’t watching that 10 pm show or anything else on NBC.
Carson’s exit wasn’t graceful. Everyone rewrites history. It was contentious and he was pissed and humiliated. He went from powerful king of NBC to detritus NBC swept away and it seemed he never got over it. Carson’s ouster was inevitable. That nasty planted newspaper story by Leno’s manager accelerated what was already in motion – but it’s possible the manager did it without telling Leno.
Carson was hardly decent to Joan Rivers who is the one in this epic tale who really got the shabby treatment, and she got higher ratings than all the guys including Carson (she was unbelievably hilarious – watch some old clips and you will see Caron crying from laughter like you’ve never seen him laugh.) There was one night where he and Michael Landon were trashing Rivers on the show and had even made a little film called “Up Rivers.”
You make a good point about Fallon. If they’re so confident in Fallon, they should just start him now.
If Joan Rivers hadn’t stabbed Johnny in the back by going to FOX (and the never spoke again – even when she tried to reconcile before he died) Who knows what the state of late night might have looked like if Jay didn’t get so much power when he became the only guest host on the show in Johnny’s final years.
Are Johnny Carson and Conan the only ones permitted to have talk shows?
Joan Rivers didn’t stab anybody. She had a right to her own show when it was offered. You sure didn’t see NBC or Carson ever considering her as heiress to the Tonight Show.
And you sure didn’t see Carson trashing the boys on national tv, as much as he resented Leno he didn’t publicly beat him up like he did Rivers. Heaven forbid, a woman doesn’t stay in her place.
Leno’s “jokes” make no sense (shocker.) The man’s contract is up next year. All NBC is doing is putting the motions in play to secure a new host for when Leno leaves. How exactly is this being “stabbed in the back?” NBC has no right to do this, has no right to even discuss it as long as King Jay is around??? NBC – get rid of this asshole once and for all – knock that ego down a few notches. See where his barbs land him 2 years from now.
Personally I think his comments now are mean-spirited. Sour Grapes! They really aren’t even funny, just back-biting.
Guys! Guys! You’re forgetting one thing.. Late night Talk shows are dead, no one give a shit.
When it comes down to it, there are only two reasons that haters hate on Leno. He is the only one doing Obama jokes, andThey HATE that he owns Middle America fly-over country. The smug liberals who think O’Brien, Fallon, and Kimmel are funny hate Middle America, and hate Leno for appealing to it.
I bet George Lopez is happier than most.