Late night legend Jay Leno had no punchlines for the cameras on Monday — just the painful truth. In an interview with NBC’s Al Roker, the former ”Tonight Show” host said he didn’t miss hosting television a single bit.
“Do you miss being on the show,” NBC’s Al Roker asked, “Or is it such a different time that it would be hard to do?”
“No,” Leno responded. “No, it’s different. I don’t miss it. You know, everything now is, if people don’t like your politics they — everyone has to know your politics.”
It seems he preferred when the nights of comedy were funny, not political commentators.
Especially since President Donald Trump’s entry into politics, late night hosts such as Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Colbert, along with the entire “Saturday Night Live” outfit incessantly attacks the White House in a never ending loop.
Somehow, over the course of just a decade, television’s biggest jokesters have turned to liberal mouthpieces. What were once funny comedians have devolved to poor personalities: the Jeb Bushes of late night.
Late show hosts have an agenda, that’s clear. So where has the humor gone, Leno wants to know?
“Now it’s all very serious,” he said. “I’d just like to see a bit of civility come back to it, you know?”
“When people see you as one-sided it makes it tough,” Leno said.
“I kind of used Johnny’s [Carson] model,” he said. “People couldn’t figure it out. ‘Well, you and your Republican friends’ or ‘Well, Mr. Leno, you and your Democratic buddies.’ And I would get hate mail from both sides equally.”
And although Leno has retired from the game, he still threw a few funny bones out for his fans, when referring to how lucky he was to work in the political era that he did.
“…you know, I did it when Clinton was horny and Bush was dumb, and it was just a little easier.”
Watch the interview below —
The Horn editorial team