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Posted on Mon, Sep. 14, 2009 11:32 PM
Leno’s return is mighty familiar
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Jay Leno made his return to network television Monday night, and other than the early-bird time slot, very little about it seemed unfamiliar.
NBC had promised to shake up prime time by airing a late-night talk show at 9 p.m. weeknights. Leno had promised to shake up the format of “The Tonight Show.”
Instead, the first “Jay Leno Show” was reminiscent of nothing so much as a typical “Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” with A-list stars, a monologue, a musical act and — this being Monday — the deathless “Headlines” segment.
“This is not another annoying promo,” Leno joked in his opening monologue. “This is the actual show!”
And it was clear from the get-go that, despite the endless NBC hype, this would be essentially the same show that made him the most-watched late night personality for 14 years. Of course, “The Jay Leno Show” airs 90 minutes earlier than “The Tonight Show,” and it is not expected to win many head-to-head battles with other networks’ scripted dramas.
But as a defensive maneuver — designed to stop the network’s 9 p.m. woes and keep Leno from jumping to a rival network — NBC executives could not have hoped for more than what they saw on Monday night.
Jerry Seinfeld was dependably solid as Leno’s first guest, doing what a first guest has become expected to do, which is tell the jokes the host can’t.
“You know, in the ’90s when we quit a show, we actually left,” Seinfeld joked. “But not in the Brett Favre-Lance Armstrong double-ohs.”
Seinfeld then turned to a flat-screen where Oprah Winfrey was beamed in, unannounced, by satellite.
But both superstars were upstaged by what turned out, through pure dumb luck, to be the biggest booking of the night. NBC had announced more than a month ago that Kanye West would perform a musical number on the first “Jay Leno Show,” in a trio with fellow superstars Jay-Z and Rihanna. Then on Sunday night, West created a frenzy in the media and online when he stormed the stage of MTV’s Video Music Awards, ripped the microphone from award winner Taylor Swift and declared that Beyonce should’ve won instead.
Faster than you could say Hugh Grant, West was double-booked as an interview guest on Monday’s show, giving Leno the honor of eliciting the sincere apology everyone knew was coming. “I need to, after this, take some time off and just analyze how I’m going to make it through the rest of this life, how I’m going to improve,” West said.
What changes there were to the “Tonight” format seemed superficial.
Otherwise, it could’ve been “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.”
And there are no doubt times NBC wished it could go back to that arrangement. But Conan O’Brien had long coveted the “Tonight” job, and denying it would’ve meant losing him.
But as a result of this round of musical chairs, the late-night contest is more heated than it has been in a decade. David Letterman, who trailed Leno by a million viewers, is now tied with O’Brien for first. Their successors at 11:30, Craig Ferguson and Jimmy Fallon, are also tied in the time period O’Brien used to dominate.
@ Go to KansasCity.com to see video of Kanye West’s appearance on Leno’s show.
Posted on Mon, Sep. 14, 2009 11:32 PM
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