• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, November 10, 2014

What has Jay Leno been up to since he stepped down from “The Tonight Show” last February?

Well, among other things, he’s been letting himself go stale in the comedy department. That much was in evidence when he turned up last Friday night as Jimmy Fallon’s guest on the current incarnation of “The Tonight Show.”

Leno’s visit was widely billed as his “return” to “The Tonight Show” for the first time since he left, but the show he was returning to was so unlike the show he hosted that it was more like he was visiting the show for the first time. Most significantly, the show is now in New York, a city Jay rarely visits. Not only does the show look and sound completely different than the one Jay hosted in Burbank, but it’s now titled “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.”  All Jay ever got in the show’s title was a “with,” as in “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” -- never “Starring Jay Leno." 

Watching him with Fallon, you found yourself wondering yet again: Why is Jay even giving NBC the time of day? Why didn’t he use his time in New York to visit the “Letterman” show, which would have been a noteworthy -- and headline-making -- snub of NBC?  Speaking as a journalist, I have to say that would have made for a better story. Alas.

There are those who will insist that Leno remains cordial to NBC because he is hosting a show about collectible cars next year on NBC-owned CNBC. But I have a feeling that the auto show would still go on whether Leno agreed to go on the “Fallon” show or not.

Fallon was certainly generous to Jay, giving him an opportunity to perform six-and-a-half minutes of standup before joining Fallon for an interview) that lasted more than nine minutes.  Leno then remained onstage for the next guest segment with Lucy Liu -- another six minutes. All told: Leno was seen on “The Tonight Show” Friday night for about 21 minutes.

So what was so stale about his comedy? Well, one joke he recited this past Friday was one I'd heard before. I'm positive he delivered it in a monologue last year when he was still host of “The Tonight Show.” It was an observation about the George Clooney-Sandra Bullock movie “Gravity,” which was released more than a year ago.  

Sounding like a run-of-the-mill nightclub comic (if not a 12-year-old), he made an off-color joke about the name of the Thai capital of Bangkok, and then went off on riffs about flip phones and the phenomenon of “binge-watching.” Concerning the latter subject, Leno even made a reference to Depend undergarments -- a subject that was once a staple of his “Tonight Show” monologues, but one that I thought he had abandoned as far back as the 1990s.

Through it all, Fallon clapped and doubled over with laughter in a manner that was so intense you could be excused for thinking he was faking it (which he probably was). The most exaggerated of these reactions was in response to a line Leno uttered on the subject of being loyal to NBC. Such lines were also staples of Leno’s “Tonight Show” monologues, particularly in the months leading up to his exit from the show. According to press reports over the weekend, Leno helped Fallon score his best Friday night ratings since last March.

Meanwhile, Leno has an appointment to keep with another late-night show -- the final edition of “Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson” on CBS on Friday, Dec. 19. CBS announced the booking last week.  Of all of the other late-night shows that were on TV during his reign on “The Tonight Show,” Ferguson's was the one that Leno visited on a semi-regular basis, with Ferguson also appearing on Leno's “Tonight Show” once or twice a year. It was said that the two became friendly based on one commonality: Ferguson is Scottish, and so was Leno’s mother.

When they were last together on TV -- on Ferguson's show in September 2013 -- Ferguson pressed Leno to reveal his future plans after he leaves “The Tonight Show” a few months hence and, true to form, Leno revealed nothing.

Instead, he told some jokes and some funny stories about telling jokes. I suspect he'll be no less entertaining, and no more forthcoming, when he appears with Ferguson again next month.