Daily Reviews » Leno

Obama Mocks Leno at White House Correspondents’ Dinner

Admin — Sun, 02 May 2010 21:47:21 +0000

President Barack Obama was full of jokes during the weekend’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner — including a few zingers aimed at Jay Leno.

VIDEO: Leno trades quips with Obama at annual dinner

“The only person whose ratings fell more than mine last year is here tonight. Great to see you, Jay,” he said to the late-night host, who also headlined the evening.

Obama told the 3,000-person audience he was glad to appear before Leno because …

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Why Didn’t Jay Leno Congratulate Conan?

Admin — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 06:47:55 +0000

After hinting months ago that he would scale down his role with The Tonight Show, Kevin Eubanks announced on Monday’s show that he would step down as Jay Leno‘s bandleader, a role he’s played for 18 years.

Conan O’Brien going to TBS

The announcement may have been the reason Leno made no mention in his monologue of Monday’s other late-night news:

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Jay Leno: Conan and I “Got Screwed” By NBC

Admin — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 00:25:52 +0000

Jay Leno thinks he and Conan O’Brien were “treated terribly” by NBC.

When Joy Behar made a guest appearance Tuesday night on The Tonight Show, she brought…

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Jay Leno Returns To ‘The Tonight Show’

Admin — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 09:15:13 +0000

Jamie Foxx, Olympic gold medalist Lindsey Vonn and country star Brad Paisley were the talk-show host’s first guests.
By Josh Wigler

src="http://www.mtv.com/shared/promoimages/news/l/leno_jay/03_01_10/article/281x211.jpg"/>

Jay Leno on “The Tonight Show” Monday

Photo: NBC

“There’s no place like home … there’s no place like home” was the mantra heard as a sepia-hued Jay Leno woke up in a farmhouse surrounded by several friends, including “The Tonight Show” bandleader Kevin Eubanks and Ross “The Intern” Matthews. The host fruitlessly attempted to recount stories from a faraway land but was quickly informed that he was simply suffering from a serious head injury.

“He took quite a hit,” Matthews assessed, “but he’s going to be just fine.”

Hearkening back to the classic “The Wizard of Oz” scene, the silver-haired late-night host returned to “The Tonight Show” on Monday night (March 1), and it almost felt as if he had never left. Despite a brief mention of the watchful eyes of David Letterman and Oprah Winfrey and a quick opening quip at NBC’s expense — “I’m Jay Leno, your host … at least for a while!” — Leno barely acknowledged his brief absence from the hosting gig and the controversy surrounding former host Conan O’Brien’s unceremonious departure.

Instead, Leno focused his opening monologue on current events, including the Olympics, the financial climate, airline security, Toyota’s safety woes and Tiger Woods’ marital issues. He also unveiled several new bits such as “How Boring Is Alan Greenspan,” “The World’s Tightest Pants” and “The Great Desk Search,” where the host went door-to-door throughout Burbank, California, alongside surprise guests Adam Carolla and Randy Jackson in search of a new desk for his late-night return.

The award for most enthusiastic participant easily went to Academy Award-winning actor and musician Jamie Foxx. As Leno’s first guest, Foxx rushed out to the audience, led the crowd in a “welcome back” chant and sprayed a bottle of champagne all over the studio. Foxx spoke with the host about his daughter’s recent 16th birthday party, flirting with Kirstie Alley on “Oprah” and his first car. He also reminisced over his recent victory at the Grammy Awards for “Blame It on the Alcohol,” excitedly recounting the evening and spilling his mug of water in the process.

“Why don’t you take an Ambien and we’ll go to commercial,” Leno joked at his energetic guest’s expense.

Leno’s second guest was Olympic gold medalist Lindsey Vonn, a more subdued but no less enthusiastic presence than Foxx. The alpine ski racer arrived to loud chants of “USA, USA, USA” and proceeded to show off her recently earned gold medal to both Foxx and Leno. “I’m so thankful it worked out,” she said of her victory. “You only get one shot to get these medals.”

Vonn told Leno that she plans to take a red-eye flight to Switzerland following the show for another skiing competition in two days.

Musical guest Brad Paisley closed out Leno’s “Tonight Show” return with his performance of the title track from his recent album American Saturday Night. In the show’s closing moments, Leno offered a very brief thank you and wished Jimmy Fallon a happy anniversary, as tonight marks one year since the former “Saturday Night Live” comedian assumed O’Brien’s role as the host of “Late Night.”

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href="http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/foxx_jamie/artist.jhtml">Jamie Foxx

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NBC Debuts New Tonight Show with Jay Leno Promos

Admin — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 04:36:23 +0000

He’s showed his softer side on The Oprah Winfrey Show and appeared alongside longtime rival David Letterman in the most buzzed-about commercial during Super Bowl XLIV. Step 3 in Jay Leno‘s return to late night: new promos.

With Leno scheduled to resume Tonight Show hosting duties March 1, NBC has unveiled…

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NBC Ends Jay Leno Show Early “For Good Behavior”

Admin — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 10:21:14 +0000

Jay Leno signed off his self-titled talk show for the last time Tuesday, joking that NBC was allowing him to end the network’s failed prime-time experiment after only five months “for good behavior.”

“We were on the air five months,” he said in his final Jay Leno Show monologue. “It seems like just yesterday I was telling NBC…

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Leno Ends Prime-Time Show; Will You Watch Him at 11:35?

Admin — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 17:31:15 +0000

NBC’s brief, disastrous experiment with bringing Jay Leno to prime time ends tonight at 10/9c …

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Jay Leno Tells Oprah He’s ‘Hugely’ Embarrassed By Conan O’Brien Fiasco

Admin — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 06:39:03 +0000

‘It was really agonizing,’ he says about the reaction to his ‘Tonight Show’ return.
By Eric Ditzian

src="http://www.mtv.com/shared/promoimages/news/l/leno_jay/oprah_100128/story/281x211.jpg"/>

Jay Leno on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” on Thursday

Photo: ABC/ Harpo

Less than a week after Conan O’Brien’s “Tonight Show” farewell, and with less than a dozen episodes of his own failed prime-time show still to come, Jay Leno appeared on Thursday’s (January 28) episode of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” to air his thoughts on the late-night debacle.

“It’s hugely embarrassing,” the 59-year-old comedian said of the situation, in which he fizzled at the 10 p.m. hour and then took back the “Tonight Show” mantle just seven months after O’Brien assumed it.

“Anything they did would have been better than this,” Leno said during the hour-long interview, which took place on the set of his current show. “Anything. Anything they did. If they’d come in and shot everybody, I mean, it would have been people murdered, but at least it would have been a two-day story. Yes, NBC could not have handled it worse, from 2004 onward. This whole thing was a huge, huge mess.”

Suggesting that a preferable alternative would involve a workplace massacre might be a tad extreme, but that statement just speaks to how heated this latest late-night shift has become. Pilloried nightly by his fellow hosts and forced to watch as the entire nation seemed to side with O’Brien, Leno took the time on “Oprah” to finally air his grievances and explain the reasoning behind his actions.

“I had a show; my show got canceled,” he said. “They weren’t happy with the other guy’s show. They said, ‘We want you to go back.’ I said, ‘OK.’ And this seemed to make a lot of people really upset. And I go, ‘Well, who wouldn’t take that job, though? Who wouldn’t do that?’ And it was really agonizing. And I would spend a lot of time just thinking about it, going, ‘I think I’m a good guy. Am I not a good guy?’ Maybe I’m just one of those guys who thinks I see everything with the rose-colored glasses and the world is falling around you.”

Asked if he was being treated unfairly in the media, Leno said, “I think so, but I think you have to look for a bad guy.”

Leno also admitted he lied to his viewers in 2004 when he said on air that he planned to retire once O’Brien took over “Tonight,” a fiction he maintained in public for much of the next five years. “I told a little white lie on the air,” he revealed. “It made it easier that way.”

His intention the entire time was to launch a new show on a rival network after NBC’s decision to give his show to O’Brien left Leno “devastated.” “It broke my heart,” he said.

But when NBC approached him with the idea to move to prime time, Leno said he took it because he was “comfortable” and starting a show on a new network would be “a lot of work.” Still, he argued Conan could now start “a successful show on Fox or wherever else he goes.”

“Good performer and good comic and a good guy,” Leno said about O’Brien. “No animosity there.”

Nor was there ill will in 2004, when the late-show succession plan was first hatched. Leno said the two hosts remained friendly. When Leno’s prime-time show faltered after its launch and NBC suggested giving him a 30-minute program at 11:30 p.m., followed by Conan’s “Tonight Show,” Leno said he never thought his rival would reject the offer.

Asked to respond to accusations that moving “Tonight” to midnight would be destructive to the franchise, Leno said, “If you look at the ratings, it was already destructive to the franchise.

“It all comes down to numbers in show business,” he added.

Before Leno returns to “Tonight” following the Winter Olympics, the comedian said “there’s a lot of damage control that has to be done” and that he worries about rebuilding his audience after the feud. Can he regain the #1 late-night spot in the ratings now that David Letterman has assumed that perch?

“I don’t know,” he answered.

What do you think about Leno’s “Oprah” appearance? Is he right that he’s been vilified in the press for no reason? Let us know below!

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