Lenopause

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno made its debut on May 25, 1992, but even by Christmas that year, NBC was still treating Jay like a late night experiment. Jay was so upset by the network's inability to commit to his contract that he disappeared from the show's holiday party early, while the likes of "Mr. Anecdote," Fred De Cordova, was on stage performing some kind of fatuous satire with other members of the NBC brass.

Even by New Years, I remembered writing a joke about NBC's ability to forget old acquaintances. It's hard to believe that after all these years they are still treating him like a pawn instead of a King. Maybe it's just the bad Karma from when former Tonight Show Executive Producer Helen Kushnick applied pressure to have Johnny Carson retire sooner while she was Jay's manager.

Although Jay seemed opposed to her strategy, Helen was like the Dick Cheney of late night, hell bent on seeing her agenda carried out regardless of the eventual fallout from her actions. One such action, sending the Tonight Show audience home because NBC wouldn't cut a live address by Ronald Reagan short, not only ended her reign of Tonight Show terror, but also allowed Jay to justify breaking free from his undying loyalty to her.

I said on the O'reilly Factor that Jay was going through Lenopause but the truth is that he is a master dinner chef who was asked to cook lunch and attempted to try and get the lunchers to eat from the dinner menu. The Tonight Show itself was an institution, and although it went through many changes from it's inception in 1954 when it was launched by Sigourney Weaver's father Sylvester "Pat" Weaver who was an executive at NBC, Johnny concretized it's current highly emulated structure. .

Now that NBC is owned by a cable giant, I imagine the letters will signify Nine Billion Channels but if they are smart they will become diligent in bringing the 11:35 slot back to it's familiar format because as the world is changing at a record pace, at the end of the day people will be looking for the comfort of the familiar to tuck them in.

 

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Comments

[wendoxia]

03:54 AM on 01/13/2010

Thats not what happened, Buddy. I feel compelled to be fair here. Helen Kushnick sent the Tonight show audience home because the network PROMISED her they would cut away from the convention ( and it was CLINTON"S nomination... Reagan, really??? in 1992?)and then reneged because Clinton had decided to walk across the street into the convention center. I was in the control room and heard the whole thing.. she had held the audience for a live taping for over an hour and finally said.. screw it.. i cant hold them longer.The pages were passing out candy to keep people in their seats. Please dont trash poor Helen more than history already has. If she was misguided at times, she had Jay's best interest at heart. She was his manager. And she and Jerry had no small part in making Jay a star.

[Buddy Winston]

01:23 PM on 01/13/2010

Thanks for your post Wendy. It was actually Ronald Reagan’s valedictory speech at the 1992 Republican Convention. I was standing next to Helen when she made the decision and told her not to send the audience home. I will never forget because she scolded me saying, "Don't you ever tell me what to do” and I replied, "Actually Helen, I'm telling you what NOT to do". Had I not been a friend of hers for many years I probably would have been fired on the spot. The memory is ingrained even deeper in that a day or so later while the Tonight Show Drama was being broadcast on CNN in my office Helen walks in and pleads with me to go into Jay's office and tell him it's all going to work out. Needless to say, at that point I told her that I tried to help her in advance but her peacock had been cooked.
BTW - I also remember and appreciate how you furnished me with a life size meadow scene to put on the wall of my office to mask the fact that the writer offices were windowless.

[bamball]

02:21 PM on 01/14/2010

She held the audience for a "live taping"? Is there such thing as a "non-live taping", or I guess that would be animation or a puppet show. Can you hold a "live taping" for over an hour? That would be a "future taping"

[wetcoastm]

06:11 PM on 01/12/2010

He had his turn, time to move on.