When Jay Leno was hosting the Tonight Show, he was always known as a “both sides” guy. He generally gave equal time to Democrats and Republicans, and politicians knew that Leno was never going to be a hard-hitting interview where they would have to be on the defensive. Leno’s monologues sometimes had political jokes, but again, he was an equal-opportunity comedian who made jokes about Dems and Republicans. A lot has changed since Leno was on network television, and the landscape of political comedy and late-night comedy has changed dramatically in the past decade especially. But Leno is out of touch with those changes, and so he blamed Stephen Colbert for Colbert’s own firing at CBS. This is one of the smarmiest interviews I’ve read in a minute.
Jay Leno is speaking out about the political landscape of late-night television, given the recent cancellation of The Late Show. In a July 27 interview with the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute, the comedian and former late-night host said, “I love political humor, don’t get me wrong, but what happens is people wind up cozying too much to one side or the other. I don’t think anybody wants to hear a lecture,” he added.
Leno, 75, hosted The Tonight Show from 1992 to 2009 and then again — after a messy, public handover-gone-wrong with Conan O’Brien — from 2010 to 2014. While there was plenty of political fodder during that time, he said he tried not to alienate viewers by going too far to one side or the other.
“Why shoot for half an audience? Why not try to get the whole? I like to bring people into the big picture. I don’t understand why you would alienate one particular group,” he said. “Or just don’t do it at all. I’m not saying you have to throw your support or whatever, but just do what’s funny.”
In fact, Leno said, he prided himself when angry feedback came from both sides of the aisle.
“It was fun to me when I got hate letters: ‘You and your Republican friends’ [or] ‘Well, I hope you and your Democratic buddies are happy’… over the same joke,” he recalled. “I go, ‘Well, that’s good.’ That’s how you get a whole audience. [Nowadays], you have to be content with half the audience because you have to give your opinion.”
Leno’s criticism comes just over a week after Stephen Colbert made the shocking announcement that his No. 1-rated Late Show was being canceled after more than 30 years.
The greatest comedy myth is that there’s a certain kind of comedy which will be funny/palatable/apolitical enough for both sides. The greatest political myth is that both sides are equal, and both sides need to be lampooned/criticized/mocked in equal measure. “Yeah, so Trump-supporting assassins murdered Minnesota politicians, but let’s make a Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky joke!” Colbert tried to read the room AND listen to his conscience – he tried to speak for the people using his particular pulpit, and he tried to speak with both humor and honesty in a much crazier and much more dangerous political landscape. While I didn’t agree with some of Colbert’s political positions and jokes, I find Colbert a million times braver than Jay Leno.
Meanwhile, David Letterman also spoke out a few days during a YouTube discussion – he blasted the f–k out of CBS, called the cancellation of The Late Show “gutless” and “pure cowardice,” and absolutely stood up for Colbert. Letterman was always better than Leno. At everything, in every way.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Backgrid and screengrabs from The Late Show/CBS.
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- Los Angeles, CA – Comedian Jay Leno steps out in public for the first time following the recent filing for conservatorship for his wife, Mavis, amidst her Alzheimer’s battle Pictured: Jay Leno BACKGRID USA 28 JANUARY 2024 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- NBC press event for Hot Wheels Ultimate Challenge Featuring: Jay Leno When: 20 May 2023 Credit: Faye’s Vision/Cover Images
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- Comedian Jay Leno arrives to the East Room where US President Joe Biden hosted the 2023 Kennedy Center Honorees in the White House Recipients of the 46th Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime artistic achievement include actor and comedian Billy Crystal, soprano Renee Fleming, British singer-songwriter Barry Gibb, singer and actress Queen Latifah, and singer Dionne Warwick. Featuring: Jay Leno Where: Washington, District of Columbia, United States When: 03 Dec 2023 Credit: POOL via CNP/startraksphoto.com
That’s rich coming from the least funny of the late-night hosts.
Exactly! I could never watch Leno because he was so unfunny.
I watched Letterman religiously.
He always catered to middle-aged white men who needed to be told that they were still oh so special because they were so butt-hurt that other people had rights, and frankly, that the rest of the world was surpassing them. Leno can kick rocks along with the fragile old white guys who think he’s humorous.
Jay Leno is one of the dozen handmaidens to fascism who helped get us where we are. His gutless both sides-ism normalized creeping Republican extremism and his failure to ever land real jabs on Republicans helped give them cover. Eff him.
I loathe Jay Leno and have since the Clinton “scandal,” which was a massive nothingburger then, and especially compared to the daily, bread-and-butter malfeasance we’re now slogging through. From Linda Tripp onward, so many people were terrible toward Monica Lewinsky at a time when she was so young and had done absolutely nothing to endanger our institutions. Leno jumped right in to repeatedly punch down on her and milk that for all he could. Not original, not funny, not brave or groundbreaking, just Leno a huge jerk of a human being, still playing it safe and mediocre.
Jay Leno doesn’t support fascism. Just be glad we survived it during the Biden years, eh?
Anyone who has done as much to normalize and advance the Republican Party as Leno has supports fascism. That’s what the GOP is.
Personally, I was never a fan. Recently came to find out why I never like that MAGAt
Jay Leno is wrong!!!
Nah. Some lectures are deserved and you don’t have to get a compliment to make it more palatable. I didn’t like it when my parents lectured me when I was doing something I shouldn’t be doing, but I needed to hear it. If a politician is doing something wrong, you don’t have to crouch that criticism in taking shots at someone else.
If you’re criticizing the performance of a singer, do you have to criticize another singer to be” fair”. Do color commentators doing sports commentary have to say yeah it sucks that you lost that game 68 to 0 let’s take a shot at your divisional rivals to be” fair”.
This is nothing but consistent coddling of people who refuse to accept any culpability in who they give their support to and you want to make it nice for them.
“Spineless Man Proves Himself Unable To Stand Up For Any Principle, Shocks No One” — news at 11!!
I never liked Leno. And he doesn’t seem to understand that “both sides humor” while the country is being destroyed by literal Nazis is not the way to go. But my objections to him back in the day were less about both sides being the butt of his jokes than his misogyny. This dude never made a joke about Hillary Clinton that wasn’t deeply misogynistic. He was awful.
Leno was still telling Monica Lewinsky jokes and Al Gore invented the internet jokes late in Bush’s second administration. He can sit down
Ah yes, just what the American public is clamoring for right now–more both sides-ism.
Go drive one of your 181 cars you out-of-touch loser.
Jay has always envisioned himself as some edgy, politically-sophisticated comic like George Carlin when Letterman was so much better at having his finger on that pulse. I always despised Leno and his corny-ass Boomer humor.
Leno telling grown ass men not to lecture as he lectures. He’s such a hypocrite.
Maybe he’ll fall down another hill and leave us alone…
I saw Jay Leno perform at a conference years ago. He basically stood up there and did a bunch of knock knock jokes for 30 minutes and that was it. It was the most shockingly bad comedy I’ve ever seen. The crowd was mostly silent. So he really needn’t enter his two cents into this conversation. Colbert does biting satire. Leno does knock knock jokes
Blaming the victim(s) is a huge part of authoritarianism. If “they” would just conform, do the right thing, mind their own business, etc, then things wouldn’t be so bad. Except that’s false.
And the last two lines sum this article up. Leno was always second rate.
Leno’s Republican leanings are showing, here.
STFU, Jay. You catered to white privilege and wouldn’t know courage if it hit you with a 2 x4.
Jay Leno is a company guy. That is how he achieved to f*ck over both Letterman and Conan, who are both better comedians than him. He would never go after Trump when the company merge is on the line. He is a good boy like that.
Leno is such a hack. I’m still pressed that they took the late night spot away from Conan O’Brian (who is way funnier) and gave it BACK to Leno. Gutless.
But it’s not like he’s the only one who both-sidesed it for years. Jon Stewart did the same thing, even after the disastrous first Trump administration. He has always been snide as f*ck about Joe Biden and I went off of him years ago because of it. Just because his comedy is smarter and more incisive doesn’t let him off the hook.
So I guess I am both-siding the late night comedians now. Sorry. Anyway, Leno sucks.
Feel the same way about Jon Stewart. He shift shapes.
Jon Stewart was still both sidesing Biden and Trump last summer. I don’t want or need to hear from him ever again, no matter what kind of a gross boys’ fan club he has around him. That man huffs his own farts.
This is the guy who screwed over Conan from getting the late night show. I can’t stand him and he is so not funny.
Take a seat, grandpa.
Media: Just let us know when he dies.
We don’t really need to hear anything else from leno, ever.
Sounds pretty much like something a magat would say.
You’re either against them or you’re complicit at this point. There is no gray area to be found.
Leno comes across as just woefully, woefully out of touch with the current times with these comments.
(I suppose that can happen after retirement, holed up in the Hollywood Hills or wherever with his famous collection of classic luxury cars, or whatever, in his comfy detached wealth-bubble.)
Perhaps like 20 or even just 10 years ago there was some room for his argument about soft-footing comedy and rubbing everyone the right way, but uh, times have changed and he doesn’t seem to have noticed. We have a full-blown fascist-authoritarian-in-progress in the White House now and journalists, scientists, academics, student activists, immigrants, and comedians are being actively targeted, censored, defunded, arrested, deported, and taken off the air whenever they run afoul of The Powers That Be in the United States of America, a country that was founded on the principles of free speech, speaking one’s conscience, having the freedom to criticise or (gasp) mock authority, and it’s seriously no exaggeration to say that right now, the pillars of the Republic are crumbling, and the public’s outcry is warranted.
Eff off, Leno.
B.S. it’s not his business or duty to do both sides jokes. Is Leno a nut?
Agree, Letterman is way better than Leno.