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Looking Back to the Future on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
by Troy Rogers
 Another
era of The Tonight Show comes to a close on May
29, as Jay Leno says goodbye to NBC's coveted
11p.m. late night timeslot, passing the torch
over to Conan O'Brien who begins his Tonight Show
era on June 1. Interestingly, as we found out
while on a conference call with Jay Leno, Conan
will be the final guest of The Tonight Show, as
Leno confirmed to the several outlets we gathered
with on Thursday, May 14. After 17 years behind
The Tonight Show desk made famous by such legends
as Steve Allen, Jack Paar, and Johnny Carson,
who reigned over the late night NBC airwaves from
1962 to 1992, Jay Leno leaves his own unique legacy
behind since becoming the permanent host in 1992.
To close out his final week as host of The Tonight Show before moving into the 10p.m. NBC timeslot in September with his own self-titled outing, The Jay Leno Show, Leno welcomes a variety of stars during his last stint as host. The final Leno week guests include Mel Gibson on Monday, May 25, Arnold Schwarzenegger the following night on May 26, Wanda Sykes and musical guest Sarah McLachlan on Wednesday, May 27, Prince and Billy Crystal on May 28, and finally Conan O'Brien on May 29 in the very last Jay Leno hosted airing of The Tonight Show.
Leading up to Jay Leno's last week at the desk of The Tonight Show, we joined a conference call with stand-up comedy master from Beantown turned late night ratings champion, Jay Leno, to find out how he's preparing the close out his era, whether he picked the guests himself, if he feels he'll get teary-eyed during the very last show, and the one Tonight Show guest that had the most impact on Jay Leno during his 17 year run.
Here's a look at some of the conference call highlights with soon-to-be former Tonight Show host, Jay Leno:
Jay Leno on whether he thinks he’ll get emotional during
his last show:
 "Well,
do you mean have I planned an emotional spontaneous
moment? No. I mean, you know something? It’s
kind of fun. It’s a celebration. I mean, it’s
a good time. I’ve had a wonderful time doing
this and I’m off the air for less time than
the writers' strike, and then we come back in
September with something a little bit different.
I’m glad that it’s going to Conan, it couldn’t
go to a better person. I mean, he’s the guy
and we’re friends and it’s a really smooth transition.
I think it’ll be a lot of fun.
“You know, it’s not like we’re leaving show business or even leaving the network, or even leaving the lot [laughs]. You know, we’re just going to a studio on the other side. I’ve said this many times, The Tonight Show is sort of the America’s Cup of television and you don’t want to be the guy to screw it up. And I’m thrilled we’ve been able to remain number one for almost, with the exception of the first year or so when we went up against Dave [Letterman], we’ve been number one since then. I’m glad we’re going out at number one, it looks like, this last sweeps period. We’ve won every sweeps period since '93 or '94, whatever it is, and this is the last one. And it was like, ‘Oh, okay. Good!’ So when I hand it off to Conan, it’s like, ‘Here you go, I left it in exactly the shape ...’ So when you bring a rental car back and there’s no dents in it, you've got a full tank, you’re happy you feel good about it.
“So that’s where it is. There’s not a lot of sadness because I’m going to be taking a lot of the people with me that I work with on this show. So we’ll still be together doing something similar but a little bit different. I mean, it’s only been Steve [Allen] and there was Jack Paar, there was Johnny [Carson] and there was me, and now it goes to Conan. So there’s only been five people since the show began almost fifty years ago.”
Leno on the last week, including regular shows or "looking
back" shows:
 “I
think we’ll do some looking back shows. We’ll
put together a bunch of stuff we’ve done over
the years and see what that looks like, because
that’s easier than writing new stuff [laughs].
Yeah, sure. I mean, the last week people don’t
work a lot harder. They’re like, ‘Oh, we got
a week left. Let’s work as hard as we can.’
So, I mean, everybody is kind of partying and
having a good time and everybody is doing their
work. We’ll put together some fun things and
I’m sure we’re going to do festive Jaywalking
and some stuff like that.”
Jay Leno on having a hand in picking the guests for the
final week:
“Well, I have a hand in the sense that - It’s not my job to put it together. I mean, everybody here knows who I like and who I’m friends with and who would be good to have as the last guests ... booking the show is not what I do, but people know Governor Schwarzenegger is a friend and he’s always been a great guest, and I’ve known Mel Gibson a long time - ‘Oh yeah, that’s good.’ - and who’s available. You know, that’s pretty much what it is. I think Tom Cruise is doing a film or something that week so he’s not available. It’s not like we’re having O.J. and Kevorkian. I mean, it’s not that kind of TV, you know."
On starting to work on the new show:
 “I
haven’t really had a whole lot of time. By working
on it, do you mean are we looking at office
space, trying to figure out who’s going to be
where? Yeah, that part we’re doing. The creative
part, no, that really hasn’t started yet. You
know, we’re going to bring a lot of new elements
to the show. I mean, the real key to this is
having a lot more comedy in the last half hour.
Research and everything shows that people like
the monologues, people like headlines and some
of the bits we do. Okay, so we’ll update those
and freshen them up and those seem to work,
people like that.
"Then the real trick is that second half-hour, because - although my job previous to this was to give a good lead-in to Conan - the job giving a lead-in to the 11 o’clock news is really, really important and that’s where our local affiliates make their money is on the 11 o’clock news. I want to make sure they have a strong lead-in, that we have something they want to stay tuned for. We have some interesting elements that’ll be a little different. I think people will find it interesting, we just need to get a couple more of them. But I’m excited about it, I think it’s going to be fun, I think it’s going to work well.
“At this point people that know you, they know ... You know, there just hasn’t been a successful 10 o’clock launch of a dramatic series in the last five years. And the thing is, there’s plenty of drama on television. I hear people saying, ‘Oh, Jay Leno is taking work away from dramatic writers.’ But when you look at FX and USA cable and The Closer, and all of these other shows, there’s more drama now than there’s ever been, and if people want to go there they can go there. What we hopefully will be providing at 10 o’clock is - There’s no laughs at 10 o’clock. Every time I turn on a show at 10 o’clock, ‘Okay, we’re taking off the cerebral cortex now.’ Alright, that’s fine, but before you go to bed I’d like to see something [lighter] ... To me 10 o’clock is like the new 11:30p.m.. I hear more and more people, even young people go, ‘Oh, I can’t stay up past 11pm., I carpool. I gotta get up at 6a.m., I gotta get up at 5:30a.m.’ So that’s what we’re doing.”
Jay Leno on what’s been the most fun about his reign
on the show:
 “Well,
for me, the most fun is doing the monologue.
I am a nightclub performer who was lucky enough
to get a TV show. Johnny was the consummate
TV performer. You know, the show really came
together for me when we moved into a new studio
and I made it more of a nightclub ... Before
I had the show, the fun thing to do was: Something
would happen on the news, I’d run down to The
Improv or The Comedy Store, or one of the clubs,
and get onstage and tell that topical joke to
the audience and get a laugh. And I’d say to
myself, ‘This is a great joke and I only got
to tell it to 85 people or 200 people.’
"The fun thing about The Tonight Show is: Something happens, you write the joke, and you run onstage. It’s like fresh squeezed orange juice. There’s the vine, there’s the juicer, and then you get it right on the same day. It’s fantastic. And that, to me, has been the most fun. I mean, as much as I like traveling around the country telling jokes, it’s a bit arduous. You’re on the road and in airplanes all of the time, and the great fun is you get to stay in the same place, go home every night, and tell your jokes to essentially the same people you were traveling around to before.”
Leno on his most poignant interview:
 “Well,
I told this story yesterday on The Ellen DeGeneres
Show, the most poignant one was John F. Kennedy
Jr., because I talked about how I was 12-years
old when Kennedy was assassinated and I remember
sitting in the living room at my parents house
and watching the funeral on TV and my mother
crying hysterically. And I remember when they
showed little John John in that little outfit,
saluting the casket, and my mother just [in
tears]. And when you’re a kid and your mom is
crying, it’s like, ‘Oh, my God.’ It’s like an
unnatural thing and I didn’t know what to do,
I was totally lost. I’d look at the TV, I’d
look at my mom, and I didn’t know how to fix
the situation.
“And so that being what it is, I had John F. Kennedy on the show forty years later and I’m in the dressing room talking to him and it didn’t hit me and we had a nice talk. I introduced him on The Tonight Show, it still didn’t hit me. When he came around the corner and I shook his hand, and I looked up in the camera, I looked up at the monitor and I saw me shaking hands with John F. Kennedy [Jr.], and I immediately flashed to my mom just being hysterical and it was kind of an emotional moment. I didn’t say I was bursting into tears. But it was really like, suddenly never in my life did I think I would be able to fix that problem or go full circle with it.
"You know, I almost wanted to say to my mom, ‘Look, he’s right here, he’s fine. It’s okay.’ It really struck, and it caught me off guard for a second. I was like, ‘Um, yeah, sit down. Hey, good to see you.’ So to me, that was probably one of the more emotional nights on the show. I mean, obviously the night I talked about my mom and dad passing away was an emotional moment, too, but that’s separate. That’s an emotional one for everybody. So I don’t want to capitalize on that or make it look like I am, but that, certainly, with the exception of my parents and talking about that the night they passed away. The John F. Kennedy Jr. was probably the most emotional moment for me.”
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