Leno’s Oprah Moment

I just finished watching Jay Leno’s image-repairing interview with Oprah, and I can’t help feeling that Jay was both full of crap and right on the money.

Let me explain.

Leno, displaying all the passion and emotion of that robot from “Lost in Space,” kept hammering away about how the whole thing was about ratings and money. His implication was that Conan’s ratings were bad, and therefore he didn’t deserve to host “The Tonight Show.” To further make the point, he went on to explain that his own “Jay Leno Show” also didn’t do well, and was cancelled. And he’s cool with that. The implication: Hey, I was cancelled, and you don’t see ME acting like a crybaby. Plus, thanks to Conan’s sucky ratings, “Tonight” was poised to lose money for the first time in 55 years.

What Jay conveniently forgot to mention was that his show and Conan’s show were not operating in separate vaccums. Pretty much everybody predicted that having a 10 p.m. talk show would damage the ratings for “The Tonight Show.” The accepted logic is this: A strong lead-in at 10 will enhance the ratings of the local 11 p.m. newscast, which in turn will bolster the ratings of “The Tonight Show.” Not exactly rocket science. Since Jay’s ratings sucked, the newscasts’ ratings sucked, and Conan’s ratings sucked, kind of a domino effect of sucking. So Leno’s assertion that it was all about the ratings is, at best, disingenuous.

The most shocking bit came when Jay implied that although Conan claimed to walk away from "Tonight" because he didn't want to be party to its destruction, it was too late, because Conan already destroyed it with his low ratings. Jay's refusal to acknowledge his own role in dragging down Conan's ratings is pretty damning.

That being said, what he did make abundantly clear is that TV is a harsh, cutthroat business. He never wanted to give up “The Tonight Show,” did it reluctantly, stayed on at NBC knowing full well how his show would impact Conan’s show, and when the opportunity came to reclaim “Tonight,” he took it. In that respect, you can’t really blame the guy. Did Conan get screwed? Of course he did; but it’s television — EVERYBODY gets screwed.

Leno went on to compare himself to a gunfighter and a prizefighter, which gives you a pretty good indication of how he views competition. Which, again, explains his survival in such a cutthroat business, and you can’t really fault him for that.

What you can fault him for, however, is this ridiculous, annoying asserting that he’s a good guy, just an average Joe like you or me. Sorry Jay — not buying it. Let's not forget this is the same guy who wanted "The Tonight Show" so badly he reportedly hid in a closet so he could eavesdrop on a network conference call to glean info he could use to install himself in the job. If you believe Jay, he's just some dimwitted moron who mindlessly goes along with every dopey scheme cooked up by NBC's brainless executives. "OK boss, whatever you say."

Not buying it.

Another thing that didn't make sense was his explanation as to why, five years ago, when NBC essentially fired him and he felt so devastated and disrespected, he decided to stick with NBC instead of telling them to shove it and take one of the many lucrative offers that were waiting for him. Why? Because he's not the kind of guy who jumps around. He feels comfortable there.

Again, not buying it.

If the whole point of the interview was to convince us what a great guy he is, then I'd give it a D-. That whole shtick of his — "I'm just a stand-up comic who happens to have a talk show. I live off my stand-up money and put my TV money in the bank. I don't even have a manager" — it's just so tired and so phony. Enough already. I got the feeling that he didn't so much feel bad for Conan as he did that he was revealed to be the avaricious, win-at-all-costs machine that he really is.

According to Jay, his only sin was telling a "white lie" about how he would retire when it was time to hand over the show to Conan. I think he may even believe that.

But you know who didn't believe it? Oprah's audience — 96 per cent of the 80,000 respondents to her online poll said they were on Conan's side, with 94 per cent asserting Leno should not have come back to "The Tonight Show."

When it comes to image-repair, Leno is his own worst enemy. What he doesn't understand is that the vast viewing audience will forgive — so long as they think you're being real. When Letterman came clean about his infidelity, he let us see a side of him we hadn't seen before, and it was real — or at least appeared to be, which on TV is close enough. There doesn't seem to be anything real about Leno, who came off as a robotic drone with an utter lack of introspection.

My favourite part was when he whined about how Jimmy Kimmel “sucker-punched” him when he had him on as a guest. Here’s Jimmy offering a viciously hilarious rebuttal: