On Friday evening, NBC did their best to make me care about Jay Leno's last show as the host of The Tonight Show.
As hard as it is to believe, Jay Leno use to be a great comedian. His visits to Late Night with David Letterman were some of the funniest moments on television. Sadly, when he started filling in for Carson, he became the blandest, saddest, least funny man on the air.
To make matters worse, he clearly was at a loss for ideas, so he consistently stole from other comedians for bits on his late night snoozefest.
Weird Al Yankovic perfected the "edited interview" bit long before Leno failed at it.
More recently, Leno stole Dave Letterman's "small town news" idea and gave it a new name thinking no one would notice. Luckily for Leno, his fans are very stupid.
He even stole stupid human tricks.
One of the few original bits Leno does is his famous "Jaywalking" segment, which is not only a modified version of something Howard Stern used to do but it gives stupid people an excuse to remain stupid in the hopes of being on "the TV."
As if these examples weren't enough to make me happy to see Jay go, there's also his endless homophobic comments.
I don't know which is worse, belittling the gay rights movement or the elementary school level "pipefitters" reference.
Of course, as a lover of TV and television history, I would love to acknowledge Leno's abdication as host as the milestone that it is. Sadly, the event is marred by the fact that the man will be returning to NBC in less than a year with a show that promises to be even worse.
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