Jay Leno must be getting some satisfaction out of seeing the suits at NBC — a fourth-place network whose bosses fail upward at an alarming rate — choke on a piece of humble pie.
I mean, they did pull off the biggest blunder in TV history.
Whether NBC, as expected, erases its colossal and costly Leno mistake and moves Jay back to his rightful 11:35 p.m. slot — or pulls a face-saving move by somehow “retooling” his 10 p.m. train wreck (less likely) — Jay comes out the winner here.
And, boy, does he deserve to gloat.
This is a guy who — at the top of his game and regularly steamrolling ex-friend David Letterman’s “Late Show” — was given five years’ notice in 2004 that he’d be forced to relinquish his beloved “Tonight Show” and hand the keys over to Conan O’Brien.
It was the ultimate slap in the face.
It made no sense then, and it still made no sense last May, when Leno — continuing to pummel Dave nightly and showing no signs of ratings lag — signed off from “Tonight.” He had somehow been talked into staying at NBC to host his 10 p.m. “Jay Leno Show” when he could have jumped to a network rival to exact late-night revenge.
It’s a good bet the TV-savvy Leno only tepidly embraced “The Jay Leno Show” because he knew what it really was: a purely cynical, cost-cutting vehicle slapped together by a struggling network trying to save a few bucks (and, once again, belittle its biggest star).
Jay, always the good soldier (at least publicly), made it known by his half-hearted 10 p.m. effort what he really thought of the idea — while NBC lost its 11:35 p.m. foothold when Letterman caught, then surpassed, O’Brien. Dave finally achieved the dominance that eluded him during Leno’s “Tonight Show” reign.
So now it looks like Jay’s back to haunt Dave again — and have the first of many last laughs at NBC’s expense.