Exiting, Jay Leno Reflects

Jay Leno received some flak last year for comments he made when actor Ryan Phillippe guested on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. While Phillippe has had no problem acknowledging his early-career role as a gay teen on the ABC daytime soap "One Life To Live," Leno went on and on about the role, the reactions of his parents and then, pushing for a laugh further, asked Phillippe to give the camera his best "gay look."

Phillippe, obviously embarrassed by Leno's relentless joking, refused and jokingly (or not) threatened to walk off the stage if Leno didn't let up. Edge's Jim Halterman asked Leno about the controversy during a recent press call for Leno's last week as host of The Tonight Show.

"You know what's interesting it's like when you say with Ryan Phillippe, you know, I'm a supporter of gay marriage. I'm a supporter of gay rights. Any jokes we do involve culture, dress, attitude; it never involves human rights or dignity or anything of that nature."

Dealing with PC issues

Does Leno think that with so many watchdog groups out there that comedians, in general, have to watch their p's and q's? "Yeah, you have to be a little more PC these days but that's okay, that's the nature of it. You know, it's just common sense really. I mean, do things sort of get blown out of proportion? Yeah they do. But that's okay, I mean, that's what happens and you take the good with the bad."

Leno backed up his statement by reminding naysayers that "I think my relationship with the gay community is pretty good," he said. "I mean, look, obviously fashion and attitude is always...you know, we do a Pottery Barn joke every now and then, yes, okay. Do we ever do a joke against gay rights or anything of that nature? No."

As his part in the show that he's steered for seventeen years that ends this week, Leno commented that while some people may think his success is all about the guests that appear, he said, "As you look around there are really only about 18 guests in the whole world that mean anything in the ratings; everything else is just treading water or holding."

Instead he likens his success to another comedian who has one of the most popular talk shows out there. "It's like the reason Ellen DeGeneres is the most successful daytime talk show host is she comes out and she is funny. She has jokes, she has material, she's not coming out as a personality, she's not coming out as 'oh here's someone we just like to look at.' She comes out prepared with jokes."

In fact, Leno pointed out, the amount of time spent on jokes during his nightly monologue has changed over the years. "When I started The Tonight Show the monologue was probably four-and-a-half minutes, now it's 11-to-14 minutes. We do essentially a funny version of the news and we try to have drop-ins and whatever it is. And you just try to keep it moving. I mean, it's based on the attitude of oh okay well here's another one. Okay we'll see if you like this one."

Advice for Conan?

As Conan O'Brien prepares to take over the seat that Leno has held since Johnny Carson retired in 1992, does Leno have any advice for his replacement?

"I don't need to give Conan advice because we're both doing versions of the same thing. And he's actually been successful from day one he's had the number one show. So I don't think he needs any advice from me." Instead of advice, Leno has nothing but praise for O'Brien. "I really do like the guy. He's a lot of fun. And he's smart. And the key to Conan is he's always had material. I mean when - the key to doing this is having the product not just the personality. I mean, when Conan went on originally and oh NBC didn't know if they were going to keep him - was he - he was a writer. He wasn't a performer by trade. He learned to be a performer."

While Leno may not have advice for O'Brien, he talked about what was passed down from his Tonight Show predecessor. "The one thing I learned from Johnny Carson is no matter what happens whether there's a bomb that goes off or there's some disaster or, you know, no matter what horrible thing goes on you go out and you do the jokes. And when the times are bad you do silly jokes."

Leno said that in the darker times in our world, making people laugh becomes more of a responsibility to comedians and talk show hosts. "When the times are fun you can do serious jokes but you always try to have material because your job is to cheer people up at the end of the day. You know, anybody can make them laugh when times are good; your job is to - like people say well how can you go to work, I mean, don't you ever get depressed? No, no, that's the reason these jobs pay a lot of money is because you're supposed to work hard, that's what it's all about. And that's always been my key I think that we've always tried to have more jokes in the monologue. I mean, I look at other shows and people do six or seven maybe eight jokes, we have 35 or 40."

Looking back on one of the key moments in the history of his reign and it's nearly impossible to not talk about the Hugh Grant controversy in 1995. Grant, having been arrested for lewd conduct in a public place with a prostitute on Sunset Boulevard, appeared on Leno's show two weeks after the arrest and ratings skyrocketed at a crucial time when the show had been losing in the ratings against David Letterman. "That just got us such a huge rating. It gave us such a big win for that week. I think the rating was 11 or 13 or something like that. We beat Dave that time by such a huge margin instead of just a tiny margin and then it remained from that point on."

After this week, Leno won't be off the air for long when his new prime time will premiere on NBC in September and air Monday through Friday at 10pm. While Leno said he didn't have any creative details on the new show since his team was working on wrapping up his current show, he did share that the 'family' that has been with him for the last 17 years isn't going far.

"Our show is a little unusual in that we've had, with the exception of maybe a half a dozen people, the exact same staff for 17 years. I don't turn over writers. I've seen people get married and have kids and for a lot of people here their first job with TV was on this show. And I see them go from being show runners and getting coffee to being producers, you know? We're also taking a lot of people with us, so in that sense it's not really coming to an end. We're just going to a different neighborhood."

The final Jay Leno-hosted episode of The Tonight Show, with new host Conan O'Brien slated as the final guest, airs Friday on NBC at 11:35pm.