An Open Letter to NBC

Dear NBC:

I’ve been thinking long and hard about the steaming elephant turd quagmire you’re currently steeped in regarding The Tonight Show. At first I was inclined to blame you, NBC. I mean, it is your network after all, and the situation could not have been handled less graciously. Your wishy-washy, lets-try-and-make-everyone-happy approach has prompted Liberace’s corpse to reanimate and release a statement about “how fucking gay” you are. Seriously, it’s on the AP wire, look it up. Also, I think it’s been pretty well established what a giant douchebag Jeff Zucker is.

But then I realized something; you’re a multi-billion dollar corporation, which is part of a multi-multi billion dollar conglomerate. You’re job is to make as many people happy as often as possible in order to make the most amount of money. This approach is inherent in your nature, hell it’s company policy. Large corporations don’t make bold moves. Bold moves make most people uncomfortable, and when they don’t pan out they can cost you a shitload of money, way more than if you had just played it safe.

Sadly, it seems as if you’ve already made up your mind about what to do. But I beg you to think about who the real villain is in all this mess. Your executives shouldn’t be trading barbs with Conan; they should be firing Jay Leno.

“Jay Leno? By all accounts he’s a lovely, genuinely nice, extremely hard working man. Why is he to blame for all this?” you may be asking yourself. Let’s take a trip down memory lane, shall we?

May 1992 – Faced with Johnny Carson’s imminent retirement, NBC is divided on The Tonight Show’s successor; Jay Leno or David Letterman. Helen Kushnick’s (Leno’s manager) strong arm tactics win Leno the job. Afore mentioned bullying begins to piss off The Tonight Show staff and the network. Having already got what he needs, Leno fires Kushnick as both his manager and The Tonight Show producer four months into his tenure.


December 1992 – Now faced with either matching CBS’ sixteen million dollar offer to David Letterman, or letting him go, NBC mulls over reneging on their deal with Leno and handing over The Tonight Show to Letterman. In a December 23rd article in the New York Times, Leno complains “I’m disappointed…I feel like a guy who has bought a car from somebody, painted it, fixed it up and made it look nice and then the guy comes back and says he promised to sell the car to his brother-in-law.” Wow, sounds eerily familiar, doesn’t it? I wonder if Jay Leno uses car metaphors for everything in his life?

1993 – 1995 – Leno keeps his job, but finds himself losing the ratings battle against The Late Show with David Letterman on CBS. Despite this, NBC allows Leno to find his audience. After some fine tuning (new set, longer monologue, new band leader) and the publicity derived from his infamous 1995 interview with Hugh Grant (his first public appearance after being arrested for solicitation) Leno eventually takes over the ratings crown and doesn’t relinquish it for the next thirteen years.

OK, so this one’s on you NBC. Jay Leno gets over two years to settle into a groove, while Conan gets…seven months?


June 2004 – Jay Leno announces his retirement from The Tonight Show. His retirement will become effective in 2009, when his current contract is up. In Leno’s own words “In 2009 I’ll be 59 years-old and will have had this dream job for seventeen years. When I signed my new contract, I felt the timing was right to plan for my successor, and there is no one more qualified than Conan. Plus, I promised Mavis I would take her out for dinner before I turned sixty.”

Hah-hah! His long hours and constant touring keep him a home a combined 9 ½ days every calendar year. And most of that time is spent sleeping or fabricating car parts for stupid old timey cars that don’t exist anymore. Oh Jay, your obvious contempt for your wife is hilarious!


October 2007 – Uh-oh! The seeds of enmity are being sown. According to a Los Angeles Times article Leno isn’t so sure he wants hand over The Tonight Show reigns all of a sudden. The article says Jay felt pressured in planning his departure so many years in advance. Now, of course, this was all from an anonymous source so Jay could deny any direct link to the statement. Very sneaky, Leno. But wasn’t it Jay himself who, three years earlier, said the time was right to plan for his successor? And I certainly don’t recall any rumors circulating that he was being muscled out of the host’s chair. Why would the network do that anyway? He was the late night ratings champ eleven years running at this point.

July 2008 – Not moved by these rumblings and grumblings NBC announces the dates of The Tonight Show transition at a Television Critics Association meeting. Leno ramps up the pressure by attending the event incognito as a reporter and asking pointed “What about Jay? Where will he go?” questions, to which NBC execs have no answer.

I don’t recall this incident, personally, but it sure does paint a haunting picture of Jay’s ego. I’m going to assume this was done as a bit for his show. If so, then he’s a giant douche. If I were an NBC exec I would have answered “Uh, that ass-chinned fuck face said he was going to retire. So he’s going to go home to that wife of his he can’t stand being around, as far as I know.” But if this wasn’t for a bit, and Jay just did it apropos of nothing…wow…someone might want to check the trunk of his Stutz Bearcat for Branford Marsalis’ decomposed body.


December 2008 – After making it very clear he would not ride quietly off into the sunset; NBC is faced with the possibility of losing Jay Leno to a rival network. Having handily won the 11:30 ratings battle for the past 12 years, NBC smells potential disaster. Long story short Leno has NBC by their tiny, tiny balls and he knows it. Before he can become a free agent, NBC announces The Jay Leno Show will air starting in the fall of 2009. In a completely unprecedented move, it’s revealed that the hour long talk/comedy/variety show will air Monday-Friday at 10pm thus eliminating the slot traditionally held by hour long dramas.

May 29, 2009 – The Tonight Show with Jay Leno ends


June 1, 2009 – The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien premieres

September 14, 2009 – The Jay Leno Show premieres


January 8, 2009 – With ratings tanking, and affiliates fuming NBC confirms the rumors, and announces the cancellation of The Jay Leno Show.

Which brings us to today. As stated previously I understand your attempt at a “Lets give everyone a show!” compromise. I thought the Jay Leno Show idea was patently retarded, but I understand it from a business point of view; it had the potential to be a ratings boon on your shitty network, while simultaneously saving tons of money that would have otherwise been spent on the cast, crew and promotion of five prime time shows. Unfortunately it didn’t work out. And you know what you do when shit doesn’t work out? You cut your losses.

Jay Leno wouldn’t be getting The Tonight Show back if he didn’t want it, or hadn’t lobbied for it. So really, it’s mostly his fault and now nobody wins. You, NBC, look like a bunch of incompetent, callous jerkoffs. Jay Leno has been revealed for the conniving, manipulative piece of shit he is, thus spoiling all the good will he had built with a chunk of his audience. Not to mention the fact that he’s coming off of an epic failure of a show. I’m sure people are really going to want to tune into him now. You’ve also managed to build enormous public support for Conan, who will no longer be working for you shortly, while simultaneously giving people a reason to tune into David Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel as they rake you over the coals every night.

I’m sure, on some level, Jay Leno is a very nice guy. And his work ethic has been well documented. But let me ask you this; when’s the last time you heard anyone say “Man, that Jay Leno’s hilarious!” or “Did you see that ‘Jaywalking’ segment last night? Classic!” If I had a nickel for every time someone said that to me I’d be eating Fancy Feast for dinner, sleeping in Van Cortland Park and making a living off of the local middle school population. Either by buying wine coolers and modeling glue for them, or letting them kick me in the penis for spare change (ladies choice!) You know why? Because I’d be so broke from hearing people say the exact fucking opposite to me!

Years from now do you think anyone will compare Iron Jay to Carnac the Magnificent, or even to the Masturbating Bear or Pimpbot 5000 for that matter? No one will talk about him innovating the talk show format like Steve Allen. History won’t label him a master storyteller and wit like Jack Paar. No one will remember his impeccable delivery and comic timing the way they remember Johnny Carson’s. And do you know what Conan O’Brien was doing during Jay Leno’s Tonight Show infancy? Only writing and producing a little show called The Simpsons, arguably the greatest American television show ever made. Not only did he write/produce The Simpsons, he did it during the show’s Golden era, when it was at the absolute peak of its greatness. Seriously, look up the episodes he was involved in on IMDB; “Marge vs. the Monorail”, “Homer Goes to College”, “Homer’s Barbershop Quartet”, and “Mr. Plow” just to name a few.

No, history will simply remember Jay Leno as a guy who hosted The Tonight Show for 17 years. No one will remember what he actually did with the show because his comedic style and personality is so bland. Although this is the reason he appealed to such a broad audience, it’s just like everything else in popular culture today; disposable. He’ll make some tepid, inoffensive jokes about easy targets (see Jackson, Michael), you’ll chuckle slightly (if you’re half retarded) then instantly forget it.

Yet the guy who put you between a rock and a hard place not once, but twice, cost you a mid-eight figure buyout for his soon-to-be predecessor and staff right in the midst of the reported $200 million dollar loss you’re going to take on the Winter Olympics, criticized you on his show despite the fact that you’re bending over backwards to accommodate him, and shirked any responsibility for the savage beating you’re taking financially and in the press, the completely unfunny, mediocre, forgettable, back-stabbing cocksucker who’s managed to squander his nice guy image which is pretty much the only thing he had going for him…he’s the one who ends up getting what he wants. Well I can’t say I’m surprised. That’s life for you. Just let me know how Jimmy Fallon works out on The Tonight Show five years from now.