Here's a question from Rick Mohr…
I was just wondering something. Is it just me, or have Jay Leno's monologues become meaner as of late? Calling people stupid and idiots, making fat jokes, and attacking Robert Blake and Michael Jackson in what are to me, very mean spirited jokes, not social commentary. Do you think his involvement in the Jackson mess has made him more cynical?
I don't think it's cynicism so much as a decision, not necessarily incorrect, that it's what works with the viewers. Leno is darn good at monologues and in connecting with his live audience, maybe even better than Mr. Carson. Which is not to say Johnny was not better at any number of other things. One suspects Jay may also be reacting to the criticism of him that he's lost his "edge" as a comedian and that, as host of The Tonight Show, he became too puppy-dog nice.
Some of Leno's Robert Blake material did strike me as unfair, and I said so a few times on this page. Blake may well be guilty but it struck me that an awful lot of people — and not just Leno — leaped too quickly to that position, not because they'd examined the evidence but because it was too irresistible a position for joke writers to assume. At one point, there was something almost tragic about Blake; like, innocent or not, we were starting to see him crack up way beyond what seemed usual for him. I love a lot of what some would call Bad Taste Humor, but there's occasionally a point where I feel like it's picking on someone who's on their way down and can't stand up for themselves. I don't feel that's true of Blake now but for a while there, I did.
In the case of Michael Jackson, he may not be guilty of the crimes alleged in his current trial but he sure seems reponsible for his image as a pedophile, and that's Jay's main point of attack. He's also a very public figure with the means, if necessary, to defend himself.
Back in the Carson era of Tonight, there was a period where Johnny was doing a lot of jokes about the sleaziness of The Gong Show and its producer-host, Chuck Barris. Mr. Barris was a nice, likeable guy if you met him, but he wanted it both ways: He wanted the large sums of cash that were his for creating shows like The Dating Game and The Newlywed Game, but he didn't want the King of Schlock reputation that came with those offerings. At one point, he got very vocal within the industry, and I believe he even authored an article for National Lampoon on his thesis, which was that Johnny Carson was a bully, using his monologues to slander people who couldn't fight back. Barris did not get much sympathy because, first of all, most felt that he had access to the airwaves and to the press, and more than enough loot to hire an attorney if he'd been genuinely slandered. In other words, he could fight back. More to the point, he was to a large extent the architect of his own reputation. A member of his staff I knew once said, "Chuck doesn't know it but he really isn't mad at Johnny for telling those jokes. He's mad because the audience recognizes enough truth in them to laugh."
I don't think comedians are always blameless in what they do to popular images. There have been personal vendettas pursued that way, though they are rare. It is also possible to help spread false news that way and to give rumors more credibility than they deserve. But quite apart from Leno, Michael Jackson has done a superlative job of convincing the world that there's something creepy about him and especially about his interactions with young boys. I might wish that Jay seized a bit less often on the topic but I can't blame him for exploiting it.