Jay Leno: 5 years ago vs. Now

apathylad

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#1 Edited By apathylad

Oh...the irony of this video is killing me. All the concerns that Jay Leno had occurred.

Jay's 2004 Announcement - watch more funny videos

Wow, so much has changed in those five years. NBC apparently didn't want to lose Conan O'Brien, and the exact opposite ended up happening. Kimmel's comment about wanting to ask what was going on behind the scenes feels even more warranted.

Leno alludes to the rivalry between Letterman and him back in the 90's. Is anyone familiar with what the rivalry was like? Were the criticisms on NBC anywhere near as brutal as they are right now? There's this docudrama called "The Late Shift" which deals with that specific line of events, but it is currently in low stock over at Netflix.com. I was thinking about seeing it one of these days.

14 years ago

chstupid

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#2 Edited By chstupid

I love Kimmel lol

14 years ago

vidiot

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#3 Edited By vidiot

Thank you for sharing that. Seriously.

The Jay Leno in that clip, doesn't seem like the same Jay Leno I've been watching recently. Perhaps he should re-watch this clip.

14 years ago

SeriouslyNow

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#4 Edited By SeriouslyNow

Big Jawed Douchebag becomes even douchier? Yes I agree.

14 years ago

MadBootsy

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#5 Edited By MadBootsy

Wow... you did a good job avoiding ALL of those things you listed back then, Mister Leno. Sheesh. Conan or bust.

14 years ago

citizenkane

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#6 Edited By citizenkane

That was just too much. I almost felt bad for Jay Leno watching that. Almost....

14 years ago

Aounslaught

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#7 Edited By Aounslaught

Wow. Kimmel just lit Leno up. From start to finish.

By the way, I was hoping someone might be able to explain to me what exactly has been going on between Conan and Leno. For the past couple of weeks, I've been hearing about this, but I have no idea what's actually going on. Does Leno want The Tonight Show back? Does NBC want Leno to come back to The Tonight Show because of ratings or something? Any help/insight would be appreciated.

P.S - Conan > Craig Ferguson > All.

14 years ago

apathylad

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#8 Edited By apathylad

@CitizenKane:

Yeah, I saw the Leno video posted on Weird Al Yankovic's twitter. Seth Myers has a hilarious line on the Conan/Leno controversy on tonight's Saturday Night Live. You can see that video over here if you're interested.

14 years ago

HaltIamReptar

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#9 Edited By HaltIamReptar

I was wincing all throughout. That was some severe public humiliation going on there. I wonder what was going on.

14 years ago

apathylad

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#10 Edited By apathylad

@h83r said:

" Wow. Kimmel just lit Leno up. From start to finish.

By the way, I was hoping someone might be able to explain to me what exactly has been going on between Conan and Leno. For the past couple of weeks, I've been hearing about this, but I have no idea what's actually going on. Does Leno want The Tonight Show back? Does NBC want Leno to come back to The Tonight Show because of ratings or something? Any help/insight would be appreciated. P.S - Conan > Craig Ferguson > All. "

Well it's hard to say what their true motivations were, but here's what was made public:

Jay Leno had a show at 10:00 that tanked in ratings, and NBC wanted to keep Leno and get more viewers, so they wanted to move Conan's current show (The Tonight Show) back a half hour to make room for Leno. This would mean that Leno would be at 11:30 and Conan's show would be pushed back at about 12:00. Conan said he wasn't happy with this decision and moving the program would destroy what made it special, so he decided he would rather leave.

14 years ago

Hailinel

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#11 Edited By Hailinel

@h83r said:

" Wow. Kimmel just lit Leno up. From start to finish.

By the way, I was hoping someone might be able to explain to me what exactly has been going on between Conan and Leno. For the past couple of weeks, I've been hearing about this, but I have no idea what's actually going on. Does Leno want The Tonight Show back? Does NBC want Leno to come back to The Tonight Show because of ratings or something? Any help/insight would be appreciated. P.S - Conan > Craig Ferguson > All. "

Essentially, ratings for the Tonight Show have fallen since Leno left and Conan took over. Compounding this is that apparently, a significant number of NBC affiliates threatened to stop airing The Jay Leno Show because the low ratings it had has been hurting the lead in for their local news programs. What happened after that, I don't really know because there have been too many mixed messages. A lot of people are painting Leno as the bad guy here, but I'm not sure all of this blame should really be set on him when its NBC that's been screwing things up.

EDIT: Oh, and also, NBC's original plan to fix this was apparently move Leno's show to the 11:30PM shot, directly after the local news broadcasts, condense the show to half an hour, and force the Tonight Show to start half an hour later. Conan didn't like that idea at all.

14 years ago

Dr_Feelgood38

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#12 Edited By Dr_Feelgood38

I can only wish I could feel how awkward some of the audience (Or Leno himself) felt during that Top Ten thing. I'm gonna miss Conan, though.

14 years ago

wrecks

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#13 Edited By wrecks

Yes, watch The Late Shift. Leno is a 2 faced slime, and about as funny as a stick.

14 years ago

ColinWright

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#14 Edited By ColinWright

14 years ago

thatfrood

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#15 Edited By thatfrood

Wow, Jimmy Kimmel still doesn't possess an ounce of humor.

14 years ago

DeathByWaffle

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#16 Edited By DeathByWaffle

Never really was a big fan of Kimmel, but man did he get Leno pretty good there.

14 years ago

CoolDrMoney

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#17 Edited By CoolDrMoney

Carson Daly! Carson Daly! Carson Daly!

14 years ago

SeriouslyNow

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#18 Edited By SeriouslyNow

@Hailinel said:

" @h83r said:
" Wow. Kimmel just lit Leno up. From start to finish.

By the way, I was hoping someone might be able to explain to me what exactly has been going on between Conan and Leno. For the past couple of weeks, I've been hearing about this, but I have no idea what's actually going on. Does Leno want The Tonight Show back? Does NBC want Leno to come back to The Tonight Show because of ratings or something? Any help/insight would be appreciated. P.S - Conan > Craig Ferguson > All. "
Essentially, ratings for the Tonight Show have fallen since Leno left and Conan took over. Compounding this is that apparently, a significant number of NBC affiliates threatened to stop airing The Jay Leno Show because the low ratings it had has been hurting the lead in for their local news programs. What happened after that, I don't really know because there have been too many mixed messages. A lot of people are painting Leno as the bad guy here, but I'm not sure all of this blame should really be set on him when its NBC that's been screwing things up. EDIT: Oh, and also, NBC's original plan to fix this was apparently move Leno's show to the 11:30PM shot, directly after the local news broadcasts, condense the show to half an hour, and force the Tonight Show to start half an hour later. Conan didn't like that idea at all. "

Leno has earned more than enough and should be a man of his word. He should just retire and enjoy what he has with what time he has left. The only reason Conan would be pushed back would be if Leno didn't actually want to leave, so the NBC programming director had to make space for Leno. Seniority puts him in front of Conan and that's why Conan wasn't happy. Essentially Leno screwed Conan two ways : firstly by not passing on the show to Conan when he said he would and secondly by forcing NBC into a shitty position by not leaving the network which meant that Conan's show would have to come second in terms of broadcast to air times. To say that NBC is at fault is just an easy way of saying "it's God's fault" because there is no face to designate as the person at fault. Remember what Leno tried to do Letterman when Johnny Carson left, that's very telling. Dave sure doesn't forget. Nor should we.

14 years ago

Hailinel

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#19 Edited By Hailinel

@ThatFrood said:

" Wow, Jimmy Kimmel still doesn't possess an ounce of humor. "

I'm still trying to figure out how he managed to parlay hosting The Man Show into a late night gig on ABC.

14 years ago

iamjohn

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#20 Edited By iamjohn

@Hailinel said:

" @ThatFrood said:
" Wow, Jimmy Kimmel still doesn't possess an ounce of humor. "
I'm still trying to figure out how he managed to parlay hosting The Man Show into a late night gig on ABC. "

Sorcery, obviously.

14 years ago

raggedglory

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#21 Edited By raggedglory

Look, am routing for Conan and all, but if you watch the first video and say he wasn't forced into giving up the show, then you're an idiot. He even said he wanted to do it longer but NBC wanted to make sure Conan stayed so he signed the contract. Should he have retired after his tonight show reign? yes. Should he have retired after the jay leno show sucked ass and was canceled? yes. But he obviously loves what he does and there's a sort of begrudging respect for that I guess. Oh, and the 2nd clip was one of the funniest things ive seen in a long time.

14 years ago

thatfrood

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#22 Edited By thatfrood

Man, none of these talk show hosts are funny at all. Jimmy Kimmel has zero humor and comes across as a prick, Letterman seems like an asshole who seems to never get a joke, Leno seems past his prime... Conan's alright cuz he's got some charisma about him but... damn. This shit isn't funny.

14 years ago

SeriouslyNow

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#23 Edited By SeriouslyNow