Getting a Push

To me, Jay Leno's jokes have been pitch-perfect regarding David Letterman's on-air confessions about sexing staffers and getting extorted for it. Leno hasn't been cruel or dismissive, and that keeps Leno from looking like he's gloating.

He's just been typically silly about it.

"I'm happy to say I've never had a sexual relationship with any of my staff members," Leno joked in a monologue, but then his drummer, Smitty, kicked over his drum kit and stormed out -- a punch line suggesting Jay and the drummer are lovers.

But when I told Leno on the phone last week it seemed extraordinary for a talk show host to say on air he'd never sexed a staffer, he corrected me and said the line was just a setup for a joke.

"I didn't make that announcement. Did you see the whole (monologue)? Well, then Smitty the drummer kicks his drums over and walks out.

"It was just a silly joke."

Leno says people online misconstrued the joke setup, too.

"They say, 'Leno walked out onstage and made an announcement he didn't have sex (with staffers)' without even including the joke -- as if I was setting myself as some self-righteous" guy.

Leno and staffers conversed about whether or how to joke on-air about Letterman's situation. But it was a story in the news.

"Stories are in the news, and you really have to comment on them," Leno says.

"I'm not making a moral judgment -- saying something is right or wrong," he says.

"Most of the jokes are about extortion. (Another) night, I said: A producer from 'Dateline NBC' tried to blackmail me, but luckily nobody watches NBC.

"You just kind of have fun with it, and that's what it is."

Leno's move to prime time has come with a few timely news explosions.

Kanye West was scheduled to go on the show right after West created a much-vilified scene at the MTV Video Music Awards. West went on Leno's show and made his first vocal apology.

Then the Letterman thing happened.

These events put Leno in the news just when his show could use a newborn's push.

Commercially speaking, Leno talks like a realist.

"We're doing OK," he says. "We do a show for a lot less money than it costs to do the other shows. And although we're not beating the other shows, we hope to catch them in the reruns, because we'll be live, original shows every night. We're making money for the network."

A few Leno critics online have essentially accused NBC of looking for extra cash by doing product placements, since so many brand names are uttered on the show.

Leno clears this up.

"No, we don't" do product placements, he says, "nothing more than we ever did on 'The Tonight Show.' I mean, we have this Ford Focus we use in the 'Green Car Challenge.' They built the car especially for us. It's an electric car. It actually costs 2 cents a race in electricity. We'll mention that. So I suppose if you call that product placement, I guess it is. But it's not any different than anything else, I guess."

His search for celebrity guests is the same, and the importance of hosting big stars is no better or worse now.

"The real thing about these (talk) shows is there are really only about 18 celebrities in the whole world that mean anything," he says.

"There aren't enough Tom Cruises and Arnold Schwarzeneggers and Angelina Jolies that people want to see."

That's why Leno and his team have been trying to infuse the show with as much audience-grabbing comedy as possible, for nights without big names.

All this is second nature for him to handle. There have been no real surprises. Moving from late-night to prime time is no different than moving from "The Mirage to Caesars," he says.

"It's kind of what I thought" it would be, he says. "You stand here, you tell jokes. You stand there, you tell jokes."

Doug Elfman's column appears Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays. E-mail him at delfman@ reviewjournal.com. He blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.