Matt Jacob

Thu, Mar 29, 2001 (8:55 a.m.)

Jay Leno has been joking around with late-night television viewers for nearly a decade as host of "The Tonight Show." And save a brief slump in the mid-1990s, he's dominated the late-night ratings war with David Letterman and Ted Koppel.

Yet despite his accomplishments, Leno knows there's still a certain faction of critics and yesteryear insomniacs muttering to their TV sets every weeknight.

"You're no Johnny. You'll never be Johnny. Dammit, we want Johnny!"

Yep, Leno, who will be performing stand-up routines at the MGM's EFX Theatre tonight through Saturday, knows the refrain. He also knows there was a time when those same people clamoring for Johnny Carson were begging for Carson's predecessor, Jack Paar.

"I had an old clipping from 1968 or '69 where some disgruntled critic was writing, When is Paar coming back?' And Johnny had been on the job for eight years, and this guy was bitching and moaning about Jack Paar,'" Leno said, chuckling in disbelief during a recent phone interview from NBC's Burbank, Calif., studios. "Well, Johnny did better than Jack Paar ever could've imagined doing with the show. So there's always going to be somebody complaining."

And that's perfectly OK with the pointed-chin comedian. He knew when he took the gig back in May 1992 he'd constantly be living in Carson's shadow. That he's been on the job for nearly nine years and enjoyed great success not only with "The Tonight Show" but with a continuing stand-up career hasn't done much to alter public opinion. People still miss Johnny.

It's a lack of respect that would frustrate most anybody else in show business. Leno? He simply shrugs it off, perhaps because he, too, deeply admires Carson.

"Johnny was the master, he was the best there was," said Leno, who turns 51 next month. "I always say that Johnny had all the elements in the sense that most of the guys -- whether you're talking about me or Letterman or any of those guys -- we maybe have three out of 10 or five out of 10 or six out of 10 (of the elements). But Johnny was good-looking, he was funny, he was witty, he could dance, he was physically fit, women were attracted to him -- he had all the elements that you need.

"He could be called upon to do any element of the show pretty good ... Every element of it worked for him."

While Leno admittedly lacks some of the elements, nobody can take from him the fact he's had a mighty fine run himself -- a run that will continue through at least 2005, as Leno and NBC agreed to a contract extension in January.

"At this point, you've proved that you can do it," he said. "The only person who's done it longer than me is Johnny Carson, and nobody's going to break that record. So at least (I) can feel validated by the fact it's the No. 1 (late-night) show; people seem to like it."

And people seem to like Leno's stand-up act, as well. In addition to his "Tonight Show" duties, Leno hits the road for about 100 performances each year. He says it serves a dual purpose: He enjoys the interaction with small crowds, and he's able to work on new material in front of a few hundred folks in middle America as opposed to a few million watching on TV.

"You try jokes on the road and then, if you don't bring the actual joke to 'The Tonight Show,' you bring the sentiment of it or you get a sense of how people feel," he said. "It's like in New York and L.A., any anti-Bush joke would get a big laugh. In the middle of the country, it's a little bit different. For every joke you have, you try to have one that goes the other way. You try to humiliate and degrade everybody equally."

It's something Leno plans on doing for a while. After all, long before "The Tonight Show," Leno made his mark telling jokes in intimate venues across the country. It's where his career started and where it most certainly will end.

"You can't host a show like 'The Tonight Show' forever," he said. "And I see guys like Rodney Dangerfield -- what's Rodney, 79? (he's 78) -- I see Alan King, these guys are out on the road doing it. And it's fun.

"You know, I never wanted to be a TV personality. I like being a comedian. And when you just do TV all the time, you're dependent on everybody else. Plus (doing stand-up) is a good indication of how people like the show. If you go to Vegas and you go to these places and it's sold out, well then that's reflected in the ratings."

And if nothing else, touring the country gives Leno a chance to temporarily escape Carson's omnipresent shadow -- not to mention the critics screaming at him through their TVs.

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