Jay Leno keeps busy doing stand-up
Atlanta
It has been six years since Jay Leno left "The Tonight Show" as host but, unlike his predecessor Johnny Carson, he has remained super active.
CNBC has aired 60 episodes of "Jay Leno's Garage." He still pops up on Jimmy Fallon's "Tonight Show" to crack jokes. He was a guest judge on "America's Got Talent." And he continues to do a whopping 210 stand-up tour dates a year, a volume comics half his age would envy.
"I love being a comic," the 69-year-old Leno said in a recent interview. "I'm always stunned when people ask me, 'Why don't you retire?' What's more fun than stand-up? I would be doing the same thing at the corner bar telling jokes."
Telling jokes to a live audience is like oxygen to him. And he has told tens of thousands of them.
That is why he refuses to take millions from the likes of Netflix to do a stand-up special. That means he would have to "retire" that material. And seriously, Leno does not need the money. "I'd rather do 50 shows," he said. "Or 60 shows. I don't want to do just one show for an entire year."
He said he was never an actor. He never tried to micro-manage "The Tonight Show." His primary focus was garnering laughs.
"I've always been a believer in low self-esteem," Leno said. "I never think I'm the smartest person in the room. I hired experienced people to produce and direct. I let them do their jobs. I'd watch some music act telling our sound guy how it should sound and the lighting guy how it should look. It never looked or sounded as good."
Leno's monologue over the years got longer and longer, from six to 14 minutes, as he decided to focus on what the viewers wanted and what he loved. That also meant he needed more writers. Eventually, he'd have two shifts of writers; a day shift and a night shift. He let people choose one or...