The biggest loser?

In defense of Jay Leno, more or less:

Just got done watching Jay Leno’s hour with Oprah. When I heard about the episode I didn’t realize it was going to be a 60-minute one-on-one, but I understand Conan is contractually obligated not to speak publicly about leaving NBC for a specified period of time or he and his staff won’t get their buy-out money from the network.

Actually, I just got done watching Mel Gibson’s appearance earlier this week on The Jay Leno Show. At the end of Gibson’s two segments, in which absolutely nothing of any substance was covered, Jay said as they cut to commercial, “…and stay tuned for So-and-so from The Biggest Loser.”

It’s been a lot of Jay Leno for one day and I come away from it feeling sad for him, and I’ll tell you why. It’s not what you think.

For starters, having someone from a show called The Biggest Loser on your show is just a sad thing all by itself. That the show itself exists, is so titled and is wildly successful is an indication of the wretched state of American popular culture.

But that aside, the story Leno told on Oprah of just being the innocent, go-along-to-get-along guy, company man, coupled with the soft-ball two-segment interview with Mel Gibson this week, just makes me sad for the man. It’s like he has no soul, like he’s just an empty corporate bobblehead, always nodding impotent approval...

He told Oprah, essentially, that except for asking—once—to be let out of his contract, Leno went along amiably with every dunderheaded decision from the geniuses at NBC, every mis-step of the way.

I’m gullible enough to take that at face value, and it’s just so sad if it’s true.

You can only imagine the Suits at NBC pitching him next year if The Tonight Show’s ratings don’t bounce back, “…and we’ll have howler monkeys throw feces at you, from a glass-enclosed booth in Times Square, and it’ll run live for fifteen minutes at the top of every hour from midnight to 5 a.m.” and him just nodding his head, squeaking, “Well, if you guys think that’s a good idea, I’ll do it. Sure, let’s give it a try.”

He’s not to be hated, he’s to be pitied, which is even worse. It’s demeaning and, well, sad.

Good Christ. At least Conan still has his dignity. His remarks on his last Tonight Show about cynicism are already the stuff of television legend. When Oprah ran the clip then asked Leno his feelings about it, he demurred vaguely. I understood what Letterman had meant when he commented recently about how the whole affair was just so Jay being Jay.

I think probably Leno is the right host for The Tonight Show. As the ratings attested, he and it were a great fit. And it was an insanely risky, ill-advised idea five years ago to promise it to Conan. I mean, why? Apparently the brain trust at NBC assumed Leno would have dropped the ball by then? Gotten too old for a generation of baby boomers his own age? These NBC guys are overpaid dopes of epic proportions. They’re the bad guys here, not Leno.

But as the old adage goes, who is the biggest fool, the fool or the man who follows him blindly, without question or caveat?

Or to put it in the current vernacular, who really is the biggest loser here?

Stay tuned.