Andy Rose reminds me of this 2004 interview in which Jay Leno stressed his liberal credentials. I suppose those on the right who want to claim him as an ally would say he's changed over the years, especially because he recognizes that Obama is a gay Kenyan socialist Anti-Christ. I still think Leno's overpowering interest in politics is to construct jokes from any vantage point that audiences will laugh at.
This next message is from J. Neill…
I'll tell you what Chin Boy did wrong. He said he was going to leave the Tonight Show and he didn't. He's still friggin' doing it. He promised to leave it and it was clearly implied that was forever and then when they asked him if he wanted it back, he said yes. A man of any integrity would have said no, I said I was leaving forever and I'm a man of my word.
Ah, so much to rebut. He never said "forever." He said he was handing off the show to Conan and he did — rather graciously, I thought, especially since a good case can be made that Jay was wronged by a deal made behind his back. In any case, if Conan's show had gotten better ratings, he'd still be there now instead of Jay.
Part of the problem here is that in show business, it's pretty clearly understood that contracts are based on the assumption that the project will succeed. If an actor signs for a year's run of a play and the play closes after three days, it's understood he doesn't spend the next 362 days of that year doing the play in an empty room somewhere. Jay and Conan were both signed for their respective shows (Jay's at 10 PM, Conan's at 11:35) for at least two years. That doesn't mean NBC was obligated to leave them on the air for two years of sub-par ratings. Once your show flops, most bets are off and everyone scrambles to settle contracts and see what they can salvage from the wreckage. NBC and Jay decided that their best salvage move was Jay at 11:35.
Both men felt they had an understanding that their shows would have been given longer runs to prove themselves…and they're probably right. But it's far from unprecedented. In television, the folks behind a cancelled show sometimes feel they weren't given enough promotion and time. It's one of those things that only happens about, oh, 98% of the time.
I think this message homes in on the main reason some people feel Leno did something unethical by taking back the 11:35 show…this feeling that if he hadn't, Conan would have gotten more time to make his show work. Well, maybe. Or maybe NBC would have offered The Tonight Show to Jerry Seinfeld or Chris Rock.
The thing is: Jay Leno didn't cancel Conan's show or even go to NBC and say, "Hey, put me back on at 11:35 and bump Conan to a later slot." And once NBC (not Jay) had decided they couldn't leave Conan at 11:35, I don't understand why Jay — who'd been kicked out of a job he was succeeding in by Conan — had any sort of obligation to turn down a good offer on the chance it would get Conan more time to prove he could do the job in which he wasn't (yet) succeeding. Someone…help me out here.
I'm not saying Conan was not wronged. I think both hosts were wronged in different ways but since Jay had the track record at 11:35 (and reportedly, the support of the affiliates), he was the one who wound up at 11:35. But that was only after NBC — not Leno — decided they couldn't leave Conan there any longer. And yes, I think Conan shouldn't have lost The Tonight Show when he did…but I also feel Jay shouldn't have lost it when he did, either…twice.
Tomorrow, another message not unlike the above. Then I'm hoping to wrap this up on Friday. Either way, Saturday, there'll be another Tale of My Father here.