Late Night Wars, again
It is fashionable to bag on Jay Leno.
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Yes, it is.
Anyways,
Years ago, David Letterman had a pretty hard proscription against the name “Jay Leno” being uttered on his show. His show would bleep them out as with, say for instance, the showing of clip from the HBO “Late Shift” film. The rule changed, probably around when Jay Leno widened his ratings margin over Letterman to a certain point and the rule began to look pointless. I remember it was jarring when I first caught the Leno appearance — Letterman closed up a bit with the “Dave as Every Slouch”, on the sofa watching the skit just ending, saying “Uh — I wonder if Jay’s doing Headlines!” — click the remote.
Today, Letterman is apparently eating the drama up.
Well, you know, Jay Leno eventually lost his own phobia about uttering Johnny Carson’s name.
An odd thing about Leno as against Conan O’brien. Conan O’brien apparently — publically at least, and you’d have to say with some element of self interest — has such a jewel-encrusted image of “The Tonight Show” as an Institution that a 12 am show cannot possibly be “The Tonight Show”. It would be a breach of conduct against the ghosts of Steve Allen and Johnny Carson (and, um, if you want to toss in the guy who got into hot water for saying something about a toilet, fine). The line from Conan O’brien’s defacto letter of Resignation, running off to Fox, which is a grabber — and Conan O’brien comes from a smart comedy writers’ background, doesn’t he?
It was my mistaken belief that, like my predecessor, I would have the benefit of some time and, just as important, some degree of ratings support from the prime-time schedule. Building a lasting audience at 11:30 is impossible without both.
It is fashionable to bag on Jay Leno. Fun too!