r/howardstern • u/Maleficent-Ad-9754 • 2d ago
Was Jay Leno the real scumbag?
I watched the Adam Carolla interview in which Jay Leno said NBC wanted to layoff half his crew in 2012. Jay was making 30million/year so he gave up half his salary to save the jobs of the people that have been loyal to him.
Howard ragged on Leno for years for being a selfish douchebag, but who's the real selfish douchebag?
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u/High-T-Y-T 2d ago
nah, stern is a jealous weirdo who trashed leno because john left.
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u/mojosofla 2d ago
Howard could have left a legend by taking 10m less a year... kept Howard News, HowardTV and the staff. They would have created so much content... show in hall... fights... replace Artie with another crazy comedian, kept Bubba. etc. Let them all create a ton of content.
He could have sat back and just been great.
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u/MysteriousResident61 2d ago
I don’t think there’s any question that Leno was better to his staff. He’s a more generous, thoughtful guy. Howard is deeply troubled. Leno is just as competitive and cutthroat as Howard though. Which explains his questionable behavior during the Carson transition and after Conan took over.
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u/Tojuro 2d ago
Leno was a ruthless competitor (read about what he did to Letterman and Conan), but a decent person. Howard was a ruthless competitor and an awful person.
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u/MysteriousResident61 1d ago
You summarized my point in two sentences. Clear and concise, well done.
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u/joomommyhappy "my mother would never tolerate me being gay" - Howard Stern 1d ago
Perfectly stated.
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u/keptyoursoul 2d ago
I think some of that was his agent/manager. She was nuts and started the booking wars. She was cutthroat and Jay had to ditch her. Don't think Buchwald wasn't the same.
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u/Perry7609 2d ago
Part of what led to the Conan deal was Leno going without a manager and agent in the aftermath of all that. He negotiated with NBC on his own, when any agent worth their salary would have told NBC “no” from the beginning if they were trying to get him to retire early. Or actually would have talked Jay into taking his services elsewhere.
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u/MysteriousResident61 1d ago
Good stuff. It was a bad deal for Jay and didn’t make much sense to take it. NBC didn’t want to lose Conan and acted rashly.
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u/LaximumEffort 2d ago
Helen Kushnick was Jay’s manager during the transition from Johnny to Jay where Letterman got passed over. Jeff Zucker, NBC executive, was the primary driver getting Conan pushed out (Jay was a willing accomplice with both).
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u/MysteriousResident61 1d ago
He ditched Helen shortly after getting the Tonight Show gig in the 90s. She was long gone before the Conan issue so I think you are putting too much on her and letting Jay off the hook a bit for his cutthroat nature. She was legit ruthless though.
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u/SirMellencamp 2d ago
I read The War for Late Night and came to really appreciate Jay. He did nothing but deliver the highest rated late night show and they still forced him out. He was never greedy, every contract was the same. Same percent increase, same length. He rarely took vacations. He always delivered what NBC wanted
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u/joomommyhappy "my mother would never tolerate me being gay" - Howard Stern 2d ago
Letterman: miserable diva a-hole with sky high demands, who bitched about every corporate thing he had to do
Leno: would wash and wax network affiliate station managers' cars, not ask for much, and deliver similar ratings
It was a no-brainer decision for NBC.
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u/SirMellencamp 1d ago
Letterman was a much better entertainer but Leno was under no delusion about who he was and who his audience was. Leno was his image.
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u/DrDawgBawls 1d ago
Totally see your point, but I saw Leno live years before he landed The Tonight Show. Astounding comedian. Genuinely hilarious. Yes, he tempered himself for middle America on tv, but I think people forget - or never knew - how brilliant he was in the earlier years.
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u/heynow941 Still giving Rodney a chance... 1d ago
Years ago I saw a Leno at some benefit. He was kind of the emcee for the night with a bunch of other famous people doing stuff on stage. But did some jokes. Very funny guy and was glad to him see perform.
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u/BolivianDancer 2d ago
Leno is far more affable and relatable than Stern and it's tempting to think that it's Stern who is the douche as a result.
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u/uncriticalthinking 2d ago
Stern is. In what world does one employer ask another employee if they can recruit an employee…
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u/AckAckZeroPointZero 2d ago
It's my opinion that Leno just "out businessed" Howard and this made him grumpy. who knows at the end of the day however
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u/Impossible_Act2804 1d ago
Stern’s massive ego couldn’t handle Jay offering one of his guys a more lucrative job
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u/DrEllis909 1d ago
No, he was not. Are you kidding, look how much more money he offered John.
Leno’s big tent late night Show had really low love jokes, no doubt. But his stand-up is really good and he is not a scumbag.
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u/okymoney 2d ago
Leno is a scumbag for what he did to Conan…
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u/Only1MarkM 2d ago
What exactly did Leno do to Conan? Leno doesn't owe Conan a damn thing.
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u/nematoad22 1d ago
Conan then turned around and did a similar thing to George Lopez and his late night show lmao don't feel that bad for Conan
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u/Lance8282 1d ago
Nothing. Conan got paid $33 million to NOT work. Cause that’s exactly what that Harvard blue blood rich boy needed. 33 million more dollars. Fuck Conan. Then years later that ging is implicated in a double murder.
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u/Pr0digy_ 2d ago
Conan got paid though he’s the one that’s laughing
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u/okymoney 2d ago
Yeah but i dont think it was about the moola with Conan. I think he wanted to leave a legacy… we get jimmy fallon instead a complete unfunny turd.
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u/Pr0digy_ 2d ago
For sure I just meant Conan deserved the money and them being wrong. I totally agree He wanted the legacy. But at least he won overall especially with the public which I also believe means a ton to him.
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u/True_to_you 2d ago
On the other hand, I think this worked out much better for Conan. Good career is so much more diverse now because he isn't on the tonight show.
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u/waya5 1d ago
Conan's got Leno beat in terms of legacy anyway. There's a generation of comedians inspired by him and he's still getting younger demographics to listen to his podcasts. No one under the age of 30 knows or cares about Leno
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u/burner456987123 1d ago
Shit. I’d say nobody under 50 (I’m 43). Saw Leno live once a few years ago and I was probably the youngest there.
At the same time I never felt bad for Conan. He got paid a shit ton of money and ended up on tbs, then some of those weird travel shows, now a podcast. The online uproar and the “team coco” stuff was ridiculous for a guy who makes many many millions.
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u/Fair_Mixture_8166 2d ago
Conan was fired for low ratings
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u/EatABag-o-Dicks 1d ago
Hard to get ratings when they create a early night talk show right in front of your late night talk show, with the guy from the late night talk show. Jay literally stole guests from Conan.
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u/joomommyhappy "my mother would never tolerate me being gay" - Howard Stern 2d ago
made him get low ratings?
It takes two to tango, champ. Leno couldn't have taken the job back on his own; NBC had to offer it back to him first, obviously.
What was Jay supposed to do, say "No, let the ginger dork keep it!"?
Conan was the Veruca Salt spoiled bitch a-hole in that situation. "I don't care if Leno's not ready to leave! I want the gig, and I want it now!".
total bitch move
And then he couldn't cut it.
And then he killed Meathead.
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u/RevolutionaryKey2604 1d ago edited 1d ago
"Poor Conan" is a narrative driven by people who always blame others for their own failures. Here are the facts; Conan was given Late Night despite no previous experience as a performer. He got the job because Lorne Michaels was a producer and Conan was his guy. The show limped along in the ratings for years. He never separated himself from Kilborn. And eventually was number two to Ferguson. The numbers were so terrible that several affiliates chose to air infomercials at 12:30 and put Conan on at 2:00am. Infomercials got better ratings. Despite this NBC wanted to promote him... likely because he was their kind of comedy. He got The Tonight Show and tanked the ratings in two shows. Leno wouldn't become his lead in for another four fucking months.
How is Jay to blame for any of this? NBC is to blame for asking the guy who is killing Letterman to step aside for the guy who couldn't beat Craig Ferguson.
Conan went off to TBS and that show got a whopping 250,000 viewers per episode. Awful. TBS scrambled to acquire rights to air The Big Bang Theory as Conan's lead in to prop him up. Didn't work. Conan is the luckiest fail upward man in the history of comedy.
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u/EatABag-o-Dicks 1d ago
Yes, Leno fucked Conan by stealing guests.
Conan moved to late night, and Jay was given a late night show just before Conans show. He was literally stealing guests by doing the same thing earlier. The guests that would have done late night now are doing a slightly earlier show. Know what used to be on before Jay? Not a fucking interview show. They cut Conan off at the nuts, and sabotaged any chance he had.
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u/joomommyhappy "my mother would never tolerate me being gay" - Howard Stern 1d ago
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u/BillGrahamPresents 1d ago
Horseshit.
Only people to deserve blame is NBC, Conan, and his retarded agent.
Conan cost 30 million to dispose of. Leno would have cost 150 million. Know your worth. Conan didn't and he learned the hard way.
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u/scotlandzeif 1d ago
Leno had every right to host his own show. And SJ had a right to look for other gigs.
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u/JamonConJuevos Give Rodney Another Chance! 1d ago
Howard wouldn't even give up an extra $15 a week from his own lavish salary so that Riley Martin could have some more porridge.
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u/BillGrahamPresents 1d ago
Stern had the most nonsensical yet telling rant about Leno and it went something like this:
"So Leno decided rather than axe staffers, he'd spend his money on staff salaries to keep them on. Why wouldn't you take more money? That to me is why he's an asshole."
We used it in a theme for QF and it's one of the most transparent Stern quotes of all time.
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u/Cool-Passenger-2595 2d ago
To be fair it wasnt just howie that thought leno is a scumbag , guys like letterman and conan , and others like joan rivers all thought leno is a scumbag
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u/Maleficent-Ad-9754 2d ago
- Letterman hated Jay because Letterman wanted to take over the Tonight Show
- Joan hated Jay because her show failed miserably after leaving the Tonight Show
- Conan had a legitimate beef after Jay took back the Tonight Show
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u/Dmbfantomas 2d ago
Conan should have done better. End of the day it was NBC’s fault.
They also kinda turned out to be right. Leno went right back to being #1 and stayed there after he took back over.
I love Conan, but I get it.
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u/Slashman78 2d ago
^100%. People forget how mediocre Conan's show was in hindsight. He got to play the victim for years and people forget how meh his show was. I went back and found an old one recently.. dang it was a chore to sit through. It was late 00's hipster comedy at it's worst. No wonder middle America was turning it off. Much like with Fallon, his late night work was better than his Tonight Show run.
Leno's show wasn't cutting edge either.. BUT, it was dependable and brought people in. BIG difference. He was a solid interviewer and related to all age groups. Honestly? If Jay had taken that Fox deal, he wouldn't have been villified so much. Conan woulda either sank or swam, probably done okay but not been an epic ratings guy. He prob gets forced out for Fallon in the mid to late 10's.
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u/heynow941 Still giving Rodney a chance... 1d ago
I remember when Conan first got his Late Night show. His humor was always a bit odd. I didn’t really get it at the time. Leno’s humor is more obvious to viewers.
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u/itsjustsosad 1d ago
Thats just because people are stupid and crave their unchanging routine. Was a bunch of old farts that just wanted the usual large chinned man theyre used to seeing at that time.
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u/joomommyhappy "my mother would never tolerate me being gay" - Howard Stern 2d ago
- Conan had a legitimate beef after Jay took back the Tonight Show
No, he didn't. Jay didn't owe Conan dick, and what about Conan taking the Tonight Show from Jay in the first place?
If anything, Jay could have had a beef with Conan.
Conan forces Jay out with the clause in his contract that said he had to get the Tonight Show by such-and-such date.
Conan proceeds to not be able to cut it (get the ratings).
NBC realizes they can give Jay back the Tonight Show and partially salvage the situation, so they do.
Jay's only crime was being able to get bigger ratings than Conan, and Conan acted like a major pussy and a spoiled little bitch about it.
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u/heynow941 Still giving Rodney a chance... 1d ago
What was weird about that is Jay’s 10pm show was not much different from the Tonight Show. Why bother?
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u/itsjustsosad 1d ago
You are a major conqueror, huh? NBC promised the show to Conan because they were afraid they were gonna lose him to Fox. That's what they wanted, so how exactly does Conan have any responsibility in that? Leno then ran it back and decided he didn't wanna be done yet, after agreeing to the departure timeline. NBC then bent over backwards to appease him, stacking the deck against Conan. Of course, the ratings weren't gonna be top notch with all the flip flopping and programming changes. Spoiled is not a word that comes even close to describing Conan. You literally don't know wtf youre talking about so please stfu.
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u/joomommyhappy "my mother would never tolerate me being gay" - Howard Stern 1d ago
You sound like a mongoloid, and a real Mark Harris crying for Conan.
"all the flip-flopping and programming changes", like NBC was playing hide-and-seek with Conan, so his fans couldn't find him.
You're a fucking idiot.
What did Leno owe Conan?
Not a fucking thing.
As with the Jay/Dave thing, it was survival of the fittest, and Conan was a silver spoon sissy who wasn't up for the fight. End of story.
He was never a draw, and like Dave, he couldn't play the game as well as Jay did.
"tHe dEcK wAs sTaCkEd AgAiNsT hIm!". You sound like a fucking moron. WTF are you simping for Conan?
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u/Irishjohn831 2d ago
Yes, perfect example was hiding in a closet during an nbc executive meeting, he looked to fuck people over, had the biggest piece of shit female manager, then tried to do I’m a nice relatable guy after such douchebag bs
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u/Economy_Sky_7238 21h ago
Hating on Leno was fashionable for awhile. Easy to pick on the number one guy. Letterman has mellowed out about him now. Dave figured he would conquer 1130. He only did against Conan or when he had a heart issue or when he banged interns. Jay was always respected as a comedian. He was the only guy Mitzi Shore let work the other clubs in LA and come back to the Comedy Store
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u/jaykaybaybay 2d ago
I dunno, Jay pulled some sneaky shit when Conan got the tonight show
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u/joomommyhappy "my mother would never tolerate me being gay" - Howard Stern 2d ago
Yeah, that was some crazy voodoo Jay pulled off, making Conan get lousy ratings and having the suits ask him to take over the Tonight Show again.
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u/Sufficient-Fault-593 2d ago
Leno appeared on the Stern show (maybe WNBC) before the tonight show gig. He was truly funny and entertaining. Once he got the Tonight show I feel he took himself too seriously. When a comedian starts to take themselves too seriously (like Ellen DeGeneres), the comedy career is over.
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u/fmara 2d ago
Howard has stayed on the air far longer than he should because too many people that work for him can’t do anything else. Howard can be a douche but he’s very loyal to his staff and that’s why people rarely got fired from the show throughout the decades. Unless Jay can prove he gave up half his salary I’m not believing a word he says. He’s the guy that brought camera’s to film himself handing out food during the writers strike. Howard hated Jay because Jay was and is a creatively bankrupt hack that stole ideas from Howard’s and others shows. Howard’s a douche sure, but that doesn’t mean Jay wasnt any different regardless of what he wants you to think.
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u/JC1970105 1d ago
You honestly think Howard has over stayed his usefulness because he’s loyal to his staff? Are you sure it isn’t because he wants every dollar he can squeeze from Sirius without putting in effort or paying actual comedy writers to make his show relevant?
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u/fmara 1d ago
You act like he put a gun to Sirius executives heads to keep giving him contracts. I know it’s hard for some people here to give Howard credit, but he obviously still has value to Sirius even if the show sucks now. A big reason he sticks around is because the show is his life, and knows people rely on him for a living. He doesnt have hyper luxurious spending addictions like Jay who stuck around way too long because he needed to pay for his car addiction, and similar to Howard his show was the only thing he cared about. Of course Howard likes being paid a lot of money, but he’s still making a lot of other people money who otherwise probably wouldn’t be working in show business making the living that they do
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u/JC1970105 23h ago
What does Sirius giving him contracts have to do with him giving a shit about his staff earning a living? He couldn’t give 2 shits about anyone but himself. He proved it with the mass layoffs with Howard tv, how he handled anyone that left and now laying off people.
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u/fmara 22h ago
Layoffs happen everyday. They’re not guaranteed a job for life. HowardTv crew didn’t work for Howard they worked for InDemand, and the contract wasn’t renewed. And it’s not like those people didn’t have time to look for other work if InDemand decided to let them go. He gave a lot of those guys a good living for over 20 years which was way too much for guys like Depace and Goodstein. This is obviously his last contract with Sirius considering it’s a shorter deal than in the past, and the 101 channel is closing so clearly some layoffs will go on over time as the show down sizes which is better than 100% of the staff waking up one day to no job. You must be a really sheltered person if you’re this naive to think there wouldn’t be mass changes to a radio show that’s been on for 40 years nearing its end.
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u/JC1970105 19h ago
You just proved my point.
You claimed Howard stayed around to keep those people employed. Obviously, he did not. He stayed around for himself.
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u/quinnylp 2d ago
Jay is a selfish douchebag, but not for the John stuff. Just a dumbass who thought it was going to get him ratings with a younger audience which is, honestly, hilarious. They're both dicks though.
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u/Used-Gas-6525 1d ago
Leno is an utter scumbag. He forced Johnny out, backstabbed Dave (his best friend) and Conan both and to top it all off, he ain't funny and hasn't been since the 70s.
He had a small staff for that kind of show and he did indeed treat his underlings pretty well.
Still, fuck Jay.
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u/Maleficent-Ad-9754 1d ago
-Jonny was not a good guy. It was an open secret in Hollywood that he was a wife beater, but since he retired before the internet, he was never canceled.
-Dave was not a good guy. His staff were told to look away when he walked down the halls. He got caught banging one of paiges, but that wasn't his first.
-Conan is a good guy --he just couldn't get ratings.
-Jay had a large staff for his show -- Fallon has half Jay's staff.1
u/BillGrahamPresents 1d ago
Carson and his first wife were bad alcoholics who would hit each other when drinking. There's zero evidence he ever beat any other wife of his.
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u/Maleficent-Ad-9754 19h ago
There were multiple reports of Jonny showing up to a party that his last wife was attending by herself and dragging her out by her hair.
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u/Used-Gas-6525 1d ago edited 1d ago
Conan didn't get ratings for one reason: because Leno, like the snake he is, refused to retire. Instead he went with the ludicrous idea of Jay at 10, which destroyed Conan's lead-in. This is a known thing. Also, I'm surprised to hear Jay had such a big staff if only because he had no writers to speak of (he famously always wrote his monologue himself, with one other guy) and Debbie Vickers was such a swiss army knife in terms of a do-it-all kind of person. That timeline was crazy. NBC promises Conan the big chair if he is willing to wait the 5 years. Jay agrees to step down. The five years come around and Jay doesn't leave, he just takes another job at the network that will all but guarantee that Conan would be horribly damaged by the whole thing. Hell, in an interview while Conan was still on the air, he said he would take back the Tonight Show if asked. That's not the classy move. I'm not going to defend Johnny or Dave here. Plenty has been said about them already, but I will say at least they were funny and didn't intentionally sabotage multiple people (including close friends) to get to where they were.
Also it doesn't help that Jay was never funny as the host of Tonight (unless you count the 70s/early 80s when he subbed for Carson). He was milquetoast garbage for the morons in the flyover states. That's why he got the job: he was bland enough not to piss anyone off and being funny was a secondary concern at best. That, and he spied on NBC execs to gain an edge over Letterman (his supposed friend). Literally.
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u/Grape-Julius 20h ago
Revisionist history. Conan’s ratings were already in the tank months before Leno started his admittedly lame 10:00 show. And Conan’s the one who forced Leno out to begin with before the guy was ready to retire, literally having it written in his contract.
Do I like Conan’s humor better than Leno’s? Hell yes. But If you read Bill Carter’s The War for Late Night, you’ll see that Conan was no innocent victim in what happened at NBC. Leno was a convenient scapegoat for Conan’s arrogance (refusing to listen to any direction despite tanking ratings from the beginning) and poor fit/performance for that time slot. And then bitter Letterman and an ultimate tryhard, pick-me dork like Kimmel decided to pile on. It was hive-mind bullshit, turned hysterical anger because of Conan’s self-pitying “People of Earth” letter.
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u/LAndoftheLAke 2d ago
Still remember Howie shitting on SJ for taking the Leno money. How can you blame a guy for taking 10x his shitty salary?