TAVIS SMILEY | Guest: Jay Leno - Letterman | PBS

Comedian-talk show host reflects on his relationship with David Letterman and the perceived rivalry.

More conversations: http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/archive/200908/20090810.html

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Tonight Show
• Jay Leno
• Comedian
• David Letterman
• Tavis Smiley
• PBS

[hgates101]

Wish Jay would go visit Dave on the late show! Jay is good but....Dave is a legend!

[MegaObserver1]

Johnny got ownership of the Tonight Show in 1980. In 1989 he signed a new deal giving up ownership of the show on the day he retired (but retaining ownership of his old shows). Johnny got a huge payment to do that, which he desparately needed because of his earlier divorce settlement and some bad business deals. That's why NBC, and not Carson, got to pick Johnny's successor.

[Hiphop101ize]

its irrelevant but wow look at his head to body ratio

[inrwizards]

ive never watched the tonight show with leno, and to be fair i only watched the tonight show with conan when dave's guests were really boring but he was abetgter host. edgier and more inspired. i do like to give credit where credit is due, though. big chin was a good sport doing a that superbowl prmo for the late show. that was realy funny! wish i was there to see how they got along, though i read that fine.

[mnypwrrspkt]

@hgates101 other way around

[allbu849]

He is a snake!! He is sucha douche bag...

And its funny how he screwed Dave... Screwed Carson... and screwed Conan !! Yet he won't even consider that maybe he is wrong....

[jimmbo13]

Look, I admire Letterman more than anyone. He is funnier than Jay. But Jay really has done nothing wrong...he never cut Dave out for the Tonight show, it was offered to him. As Bill Maher always says, what actor considers another actors feelings in going for a part...its all business, and Dave didnt play his cards right. And now Leno is hated by everyone when it really wasnt his fault.

[jsteeber]

@alamedastreet Dave was practically a comic genius, but he misunderstood how far he could go with a churlish attitude toward NBC/GE brass. He made fun of them with vengeance and avoided socializing when it counted. Meanwhile, Jay guest-hosted for a good six years during which NBC decided he was the one - particularly after Joan Rivers had been excised and eventually banned. Jay had NBC's support for the job for which he had been groomed -- not by Carson but by the network.

[alamedastreet]

@vickizspace Poor attitude? Uh, no. The reason Leno got the job was because of his AGENT, not his talent. She backstabbed so many people that Johnny and all the rest of the comedians wanted nothing to do with Leno afterward. Dave tried to get the show the RIGHT way which was just doing a good job on his talk show and EARNING it, unlike Leno.

[Kenshiro26]

Jay's always had the same brand of comedy.

Letterman in the 80's on Late Night was running closer to the edge than he ever has on his CBS show.

Which is ultimately why Leno got The Tonight Show in 1992, because NBC execs probably thought Letterman would be just as edgy as he was at 12:30.

He had to move closer to the middle for 11:30 which he did for his CBS show, Conan also did the same 15 years later.

I hope Conan's TBS show will skew more towards 'Late Night' rather than the Tonight Show.

[jd55192]

I read Jay didn't once mention Johnny Carson on his first TONIGHT show. True, false?

[GD29]

@Drac39 i agree about the grudge..at first, with the conan-jay battle first coming in the beginning of the year, it was appropriate and topical but even now more than a half a year after this whole debacle you STILL see him make the occassional anti-leno joke which just makes me cringe because it's so over and done with.....makes you kind of wish that the debacle didn't happen in the first place because before that dave was fine focusing on HIS own show...