First, I'm a fan of Jay Leno. I watched his show all the time. He seemed like a nice guy, soft around the edges. Leno's been saying all along that he accepted the offer to return as host of The Tonight Show to save his staff from being unemployed; and he only did it after Conan had decided to leave. The Tonight Show was/is his dream job. It was Conan's too.
Jay Leno made the decision out of selfishness. He never wanted to pass on his throne to Conan to began with. If he really wanted to back Conan, he could have. If he had said no to NBC, they would have no other option than to stick with Conan. Who else could they have gotten to replace Conan? Jimmy Kimmel? Craig Ferguson? Jimmy Fallon? Carson Daly? None of them has a bigger following. David Letterman's not gonna leave CBS. Leno blames the ratings for Conan's firing, but the reality is the only other person who can get better ratings is Leno himself. If he had rejected NBC's offer to return to The Tonight Show, Conan's job would have been safe and this whole mess averted. All along, Leno had wanted his old job back. It was a decision made to benefit no one, but himself. He lied in 2004 about his retirement, and he lied again about his reasons for returning. He's trying to avert blame by laying it on NBC and Conan's low ratings, but he deserves a lot of it. It's a little sneaky.
In the end, it doesn't matter. Conan's not quite ready for The Tonight Show anyway. His monologue still needs work, even though his skits are a lot funnier than Leno's. Leno will be back at his rightful place, and Conan will have his own show this Fall. It's just now I have an hour of entertainment void to fill until then.
Will I still watch Jay Leno? Sigh... Yes. I'm a fan, and he didn't kill anyone. It's hard to blame someone for turning down a job offer in nowadays' economy, especially when he has a staff of hundreds to worry about. (I know, you can say the same about Conan too. He and his entire staff moved from New York to California for the show. With the $45M settlement, all's being taken care of though. It all worked out in the end.) It's probably hard for someone to just spit out the truth. Leno can't just tell everyone he had wanted The Tonight Show back, and when the moment presented itself, he couldn't help but take it.
