On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 6:12 PM, Diner <[email protected]> wrote: > And the LA Times has a verbatim transcript: > > > http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2010/01/jay-leno-goes-light-on-the-jokes-heavy-on-the-truth.html >
Okay, so Leno decided not to take my advice I see. Well, he almost did - he has stuff in the first part and at the end about how Conan is a good guy, and how Leno just does what his bosses tell him to do, but in between is a lot of stuff about how Conan was an astounding failure in the ratings, and a whiner, and has a lot of fancy advisers. He tired to be a stand-up guy, but could not help being an asshole. One thing that is clear, from Zucker to Ebersol and various NBC flacks, and now to Leno himself, is that the PR geniuses at NBC have decided on their main narrative through line as "Conan tanked in the ratings with The Tonight Show, so we had no choice but to give it back to Leno". This is becoming the Big Lie of the whole Leno Experiment - the focus shifted from Leno's failure in primetime to Conan's failure in late night. To be fair, Leno does allude to his own ratings failure, but he does not address the fundamental question of why Leno's ratings failure led to him being given Conan's spot on the Tonight Show. Instead, he pretends that Conan's prima donna refusal to take a diluted Tonight Show to 12:05 means it was his decision to walk away from the Tonight Show, and Leno is simply filling an empty chair. The truth is, Leno agreed to walk away from the Tonight Show 6 years ago (and as we saw in the clip on AB's site, he was spinning that somewhat differently then than he did tonight). He never really accepted that though, and has consistently put himself in position to take the Tonight Show back. This was clear in his interview last fall, it was clear in his initial jokes about the current situation (in which he repeatedly refers to his Tonight Show getting canceled when it was in first place, even though at the time he did not portray it as a cancellation), and has become transparent in his behavior since then. For me, this just seals the verdict - not only is Zucker and asshole, but Leno is too. BTW, I think we see an example of the kind of thing that Dave really doesn't like about Leno here - where he tries to portray himself as a down to earth, man of the people, all the while back stabbing and climbing over bodies to get what he wants: "Now, where I come from, when your boss gives you a job and you don’t do it well, I think we did a good job here, but we didn’t’ get the ratings, so you get humbled. I said, ‘okay, I’m not crazy about doing a half hour, but okay. What do you want to do with Conan?’ We’ll put him on at midnight, or 12:05, keeps “The Tonight Show” does all that, he gets the whole hour. I said, okay. You think Conan will go for that? Yes, yes. (laughter) Almost guarantee you. I said okay. Shake hands, that’s it. I don’t have a manager, I don’t have an agent, that’s my handshake deal."
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