Another Silly Attack on Jay Leno

Someone named Anna Silman who works for Salon just wrote a rather hysterical piece attacking Jay Leno for his appearance on James Corden's opening show. It starts by saying, "On last night's Late Late Show with James Corden, Leno was still making the same tired old jokes." A journalist who knew a little something about how TV is done might have viewed that as Leno helping out a new show by doing the material that Corden's writers wrote for him.

She also complains about Leno doing something similar on Jimmy Fallon's show. Again, this was a scripted piece, written by Fallon's writers and producers, who were probably thrilled that Jay was willing to do it.

This woman is the Deputy Entertainment Director at Salon…a title which sounds like she's in charge of keeping Barney Fife amused. Could someone explain to her that in a scripted comedy piece shot in many locations with many actors, there's a script? That the actors don't supply their own lines?

She could also use some lessons on TV history. When she says, of the Conan/Jay mess that Jay "demanded to be reinstated as host [of the Tonight Show] in 2010, ousting his short-lived successor Conan O'Brien in a power move," she shows she's never read Bill Carter's book that documented how all that happened. As far as I can tell, Carter is the only person who ever did any investigative reporting on that episode and his version of events stands unchallenged by anyone who was actually there. And faulting Leno for his longtime (and now, apparently patched-up) feud with Letterman is not only ancient history but it's blaming the wrong guy as the aggressor.

You know, I have no problem with people who don't think Leno is funny. I thought Joan Rivers, whom Ms. Silman apparently adores, stopped being funny around the time The Ed Sullivan Show went off. But I do recognize that she continued to pack showrooms and be loved and adored by most of the population. Silman could stand to learn that's true of Leno, and that it's not time for someone like that to get off the stage just because you and maybe a few of your friends don't like them.