Continuing our discussion of why folks perceived Jay Leno as the Bad Guy in the whole Conan/Jay mess, Tony Tower writes…
Just figured I'd add one more unasked-for opinion in anticipation of your upcoming post. I'm not much of a Conan fan (I find his ideas often funny, but find his stage presence annoying), but my main objection to Leno's actions were this: at the time Conan's hiring was announced (2005?), Jay was publicly supportive of the move as a way to avoid another fracas like the one in the early 1990s with Letterman, and professed having no problem with stepping down.
Now according to the most recent Bill Carter book, Jay says he was actually very upset at being given a termination date and was simply too shellshocked to do anything but accept. Assuming this is actually true and not revisionist history — at the time, the story was Leno was asked if he was okay with the notion of this being his last contract; now it was supposedly presented to him as a fait accompli — I still think Leno had an obligation to fight for The Tonight Show at the time if he didn't want to leave. But once he accepted Conan's hiring and did so publicly, he should have bowed out like a gentleman when the time came near and not started making noises about moving over to ABC to compete with Conan. O'Brien was very hot at the time he signed for Tonight, and it was only the assurance that he was getting that show (and the natural assumption that Leno was okay with it, based on his public statements) that kept him at NBC — and away from competing head-to-head with Leno — until 2009. So that's what I think Leno "did wrong."
Conan did not stay at NBC because of any assurance that "Leno was okay with it." Conan's deal was made before Jay knew about it. In fact, given Leno's well-known ferocity about working as much as possible and never taking a night off, I'd be very surprised if O'Brien didn't know that Jay would be upset and was just counting on Jay being gracious in public about it. Which he was. O'Brien certainly didn't check with Leno before accepting The Tonight Show, nor would anyone have expected him to.
It's odd that you suggest it was unsporting of Leno to make noises about moving over to ABC. When Letterman was criticizing Jay — in what struck me as an extremely childish attack on a competitor for beating him in the ratings — what he said was…
When you find out you're being replaced on The Tonight Show, you call ABC, you call Fox, you try to get my job, you leave. You don't [Leno impersonation] "Yeah, okay, but I'll be in the lobby, you know, if you need me." You don't hang around. You go across the street and you punish NBC and you make them eat your words. Then Conan has a job, Jay has a job, I have a job, what's his name, Lonnie Donegan, what's his name, Jimmy Fallon has a job and Jimmy Kimmel has a job. See, that's the way these things are supposed to work. It's just part of evolution. It's an early Darwinian precept. You get fired, get another gig. Don't hang around waitin' for somebody to drop dead.
That struck me as a real disingenuous thing for Dave to say because, obviously, he's in the business of trying to knock off his competitors off the air…and when Jay was "fired" off The Tonight Show, he did talk to the folks "across the street" and he did get another job. After dickering a lot with ABC and a little for a show on Fox and a syndicated show with Sony, he decided his best offer was that nightly show at 10 PM on NBC. What Dave was saying was "Jay should have put himself in a position where he couldn't return to 11:35 on NBC opposite me."
Jay was told in March of 2004 that NBC that Conan would be getting The Tonight Show in five years. He seems to have decided that putting up a fight for it then was fruitless. Conan was already signed and Jay would look like a very bad sport if he tried to get NBC to renege on its deal with Conan because he [Jay] wanted more than five years. I don't think Jay had any choice but to accept the replacement and just wait and look around for something else to do. Which is just what he did.
Another one of these tomorrow. And the next day and the next day…I don't know how long this will run…