Layoffs at Tonight Show, Leno takes pay cut

I agree with all of this.

 

Leno's monologue was good when he first took over. That was a long time ago.

 

I'll watch Leno if Carolla or Norton is on, but I always find myself fast-forwarding through the monologue. I don't think he's funny at all...

I stopped watching Conan awhile ago. It's just not a very good show either. I loved him at 12:30, but the show has been pretty mediocre for awhile.

I don't like Leno, but I respect that he took a pay cut to save jobs.

It's one of the biggest reasons why he wound up with that job in the first place. When they had a rotating guest host, I think it was him, Shandling, Billy Crystal and maybe one other and Shandling's agent wanted them to hold out for $25K a show. Leno undercut them and agreed to work for scale.

 

The Craig Ferguson interview with Dennis Miller might be one of the funniest things I have ever seen on television.

 

I need to find that Ferguson-Miller interview...

I like Kimmel's show the best because he actually looks like he's having fun. I think Fallon does too... I don't think Conan, Leno or Letterman can say the same thing.

 

I believe that in the recent PBS American Masters 2-hour special on Johnny Carson, they noted that Leno's agent (or maybe it was Leno AND his agent) leaked stories near the end of Carson's run that NBC wasn't happy with Carson's ratings and wanted to make a change. That sent Carson toward the door.

If true, that's some serious rat-bastard shit. (Can't say I paid much attention to the so-called Late Night Wars, so don't know for sure.)

 

Helen Kushnick was a legendary Hollywood bitch. I'm just curious how much she did without Jay's knowledge.

That said, I find it a little hard to believe that anyone could push Johnny out the door, but anything is possible.

 

When he started out as a guest on the Carson show, Leno was very funny. Of course, the Berlin Wall was still up, too. It's been widely documented that Carson was very tight with Letterman, but that Leno was the fav of the NBC brass because they felt he was the more middle American (mediocre) of the two and would hence get higher ratings. It took the Hugh Grant interview to prove them right.

 

I used to make a point of always watching The Tonight Show when Leno was guest hosting. He was very funny back then, and the second he took over as permanent host, that seemed to disappear.

 

He let a guest complete a sentence or make a point? I must have missed that show.

I've watched Ferguson when he's had a guest I wanted to see, like Larry David. The guest's presence is really optional because it's all Ferguson and the robot and the horse.

If you like his act, fine. But don't try to sell me the idea that he's a good interviewer.

 

It was more a case of Leno being more cooperative, like willing to fly to Des Moines for a weekend to tape promos with the NBC affiliate's Channel 6 Action News team.

 

Maybe it's because I genuinely don't give a shit what any celebrity has to say about anything, but I like Ferguson a lot as an interviewer. He makes me laugh. That's the whole point, as far as I'm concerned.