The Late, Late Jay Leno Contemplates the Void

When John McCain recently did Late Night, Conan O'Brien reminded him of a joke McCain once told: "You said the Vice President only has two duties: one is to break a tie vote in the U.S. Senate. The other duty is to inquire daily as to the health of the President."

McCain interrupted Conan with a joke about his age: "That job will be very, very important with my Vice President!"

Conan has spent the last four years in a similar position with Jay Leno, the President of NBC's nighttime lineup. In 2004, Leno was proudly required to name Conan as his eventual successor ... someday. This week, Conan finally got to quit inquiring about Leno's health. Leno's last Tonight Show is May 29, 2009. Conan's first is the following Monday, June 1.

What sense does this make? Leno's not bombing! For most of the time since he beat David Letterman for Johnny Carson's old throne in 1992 -- reportedly dismaying Carson -- Leno has whomped Letterman's ratings. In one way, Leno is more of an heir to Carson than Letterman is, an affably old-fashioned jokester host who wants the guest to score. Though he's mellowed, Letterman is in some ways the anti-Carson, a grinning inquisitor who might slice you like lunch meat with his light sword of irony.

Leno can get the viewers, but Rodney Dangerfield got more respect. Letterman gets quintuple Emmy nominations; Leno gets Emmy kudos for his car website. Ow!

It's all about age -- Jay's age and the age we're living in. He's 58, four years older than The Tonight Show itself. Letterman's not young, but his style is. So is 45-year-old Conan's. Leno's act comprises what EW calls "one-liners from the Paleozoic era." That's a bit unfair: Leno and staff are at least as clever and topical as anyone in the game. It's just that the game has changed. Leno's middle-of-the-road folksiness doesn't play the same in an increasingly polarized, angry, terrified nation.

Leno is fundamentally kindly and fair-minded when every cool kid in America is not. His political humor may sting a bit, but there's no venom in his bite, nothing remotely resembling the scathing Bush putdowns of Letterman or Conan (or Jon Stewart or Colbert). Leno is also a pure entertainer in a time when humor is fusing with news. It's hard to imagine him pulling off Comedy Central's neat satirical feats, or asking The New Yorker's Jane Mayer about her horrific book The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals, as Letterman just did.

NBC must be thinking: Today, Leno's the king of late night, but tomorrow belongs to Conan -- also affable, yet trailing clouds of futuristically subversive glory ever since he helped craft The Simpsons' epoch-resetting sensibility. Granted, Conan's own hairline is receding -- he looks like the comic-book hero Tintin -- but NBC is grooming that cute li'l fella Jimmy Fallon to take Conan's spot on Late Night.

Yet ABC can be forgiven for thinking tomorrow may belong to Leno and Jimmy Kimmel. If I had to bet $100, I'd guess Leno will decline NBC's probable offer of different time slots, occasional specials, and practically anything he wants except what he's wanted his entire life -- Carson's throne -- and simply do his show from ABC, which is in no position to spurn him for being old or uncool. Nightline has been a ghost ship since Koppel left, and the show never even would've existed if the Ayatollah hadn't grabbed those American prisoners back when. It's an historical aberration that originally counted off each day of the hostage crisis; soon the show will be over too.

So kiss it goodbye, and watch Jimmy Kimmel Live live a bit later. Kimmel could start way after midnight and still come out ahead, with Leno feeding him more viewers than Stewart could feed Colbert in a thousand years. They're birds of a feather, Leno and Kimmel. Nice guys in natty suits knocking Spears girls in no underwear. They even look kind of alike, if you squint.

Maybe NBC truly blew it, here. Startlingly, Conan is having trouble fending off wee Craig Ferguson, the new, eccentrically Glaswegian Late Late Show host. How would he fend off a direct assault by Leno? And was it really wise to trade Conan for Jimmy Fallon on Late Night? Nobody loved Fallon on Weekend Update more than I did, but he's lain fallow ever since, stinking up flicks that reeked to begin with. And if he ages any faster, he's going to contract progeria.

Or will everybody forget who Leno is by the time he's out of his NBC contract in 2010? Somehow, I doubt it. He really is the hardest-working showbusinessman, and he'll probably pack 'em in somehow, somewhere, every night until he's free to return to the tube.

Look, Leno doesn't need more money. He has too many motorcycles as it is. To follow in Chevy Chase's footsteps on a nighttime show at Fox, or Larry "the Crypt Keeper" King at CNN, or some web venture would be humiliating. Finally, it comes down to pride. And what could be sweeter than socking the old ingrate peacock in every one of its rainbow eyes?

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