"...Heeeeeeeeeeeeere's......A Few Words On The Guy Making Way For The Next Guy Who Will, In Twenty Years Or So, Make Way For The Next Guy....Or, Dare We Imagine...Gal?...."

First off, there will be no rule breaking here.

Meanwhile, Leno did his most recent final show last night.








Given the popularity that he has achieved and, according to all the indicators available, maintains, there's nothing I can offer here in any kind of "critiquing" way that won't come off as cynical and/or rude.

And, as far as offering "critiques" is concerned, that ain't for me to be offering.

That would break my rule.

And like I said earlier....

All of that said, and freely admitted, this piece is no more, or less, than a quick, in as few words as possible (shu-yeah, right), about why I, personally, didn't care all that much for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

So feel free to read on.

Or move on, if you prefer.

If the latter, thanks for stopping by.

If the former.....

Up front, in fairness, I, literally, grew up with "The Tonight Show" and "Johnny Carson" being synonymous.

So, anybody who came along trying to fill the shoes residing on the floor underneath that desk was going to start out in the red in so far as the bank account of my viewer loyalty was concerned.

At the time, the brouhaha of baton passing was all about the "battle" between Leno and Letterman as to who would take, or be given, the throne.

Sparing you the long, blah blah, just find yourself a copy of the made for HBO flick "The Late Shift" starring, among many talented others, Kathy Bates and you'll be entertained and brought up to speed with how all that went down and how Leno and Letterman both ended up....well...where they ended up.

So...

in nineteen hundred / and ninety two
Tonight put on Jay / for us all to view

And I pretty much moved along with Letterman.

To Letterman.

For awhile, anyway.

First, because, in simple terms, Jay simply wasn't my cup of tea.

Having done some broadcasting, I understand, from an intellectual level, the basis for Jay's appeal to a lot of folks.

If nothing else, he's harmless.

And warm. And friendly.

Everything you might want in, say, a next door neighbor.

Or pediatrician.

Or grocery store manager.

But, and remember it's all a matter of personal taste and/or opinion, I simply like a little more sass with my stand up.

Not that mean spirited, even vitriolic crap that a lot of today's "humorists" are f-wording us to death with, but, rather, a certain look in the comic's eyes that tells me that that twinkle has all the potential to turn into something twisted in the, well, wink of an eye.

Carson had it. Letterman has it.

Even Ellen has it. If you watch very carefully.

Not that any, or all, of those folks ever did turn on us, but the potential for it happening was, and is, a large part of the subliminal attraction that those of us who are attracted to them feel.

Leno didn't have it.

He's warm.

And friendly.

And harmless.

Other than that, my lack of enthusiasm for Jay was rooted in some of those little things that just annoy people about other people.

Much like, I'm sure, some of the things about me that annoy some of the people I annoy.

Jay's style of monologue delivery was, to my sensibilities, of the "you know....you know" category.

Those folks who have to insert "you know" in their sentences, often to the point that you find yourself not paying any attention to what they're saying because you're distracted, waiting for the next "you know" to show up.

You know?

In Jay's case, for me, it was what I came to call his "Frankie Two Times" thing.

Named for that character in "Goodfellas" who ends his sentences with the same phrase twice told.

"Hey, I'm goin ta get da papers.....get da papers."

Jay delivered a lot of his jokes with the punch line twice told.

"Hey! Did you hear that Khloe Kardashian has left Lamar? Wow...I understand in getting to the divorce attorney's office, she is now the first human being to ever break the speed of sound on dry land.....(AUDIENCE LAUGHS).....speed of sound on dry land!..."

Admittedly, a little, maybe even petty, thing.

But I found myself distracted from the joke(s) because I was zoned in on waiting for the next double punch line.

You know?

By the way, not for nothing, but his habit of saying "hey" going into a joke was, as my radio friends, family and peers will attest, one of those "cardinal rules of on mic patter" that you don't break.

You don't say "hey".

It's almost, but not quite, as annoying to listeners as "you know" (READER NODS HEAD)...to listeners as "you know".

If all of this sounds like I'm picking on Jay, I'm really not.

Well, okay, I am a little.

After all, he was the guy that NBC brought in when they felt like their current Tonight Show host had gotten too old for the gig and they needed to get somebody in there who could appeal to a younger and more growing audience, even though that current host was still number one in the ratings and there was no really good, or even logical, reason to boot the current host except for NBC's fear that the guy had gotten too old for the gig and they needed to get somebody younger in there.

Oh...wait.

Was that a little confusing?

Sorry.

Did you think I was talking about Jay?

Well, yeah, I was.

But, it turns out, I could have just as easily been talking about Fallon.

Something that seems to have gotten forgotten in wave of nostalgia and best wishes going Jay's way.

Not to mention Jay's brief moments of maudlin.

Because it's been twenty two years, but I honestly don't remember, and can't find any video to document, that Johnny, in his final on camera goodbye, said anything that even resembled "..I don't like goodbyes...but NBC does..."

I promised, in the first sentence, that this piece would break no rules.

Especially one of my most important rules.

As a radio vet, I've said, and written, many times that the listener is, sincerely, entitled to their opinion as to their like, or dislike, of what we do on the air.

And, this being America, the listener is, sincerely, entitled to listen, or not listen, to what we do on the air based on that like or dislike.

But when it comes to the listener telling us what we should or shouldn't do on the air?

Well, that falls into a category I like to call "who the hell asked you?"

So, as Jay moves on to the next whatever it is he will move on to, I think I've lived up to my promise to obey that rule.

Nothing said here has implied or suggested what Jay should do or should have done through the years.

It was simply a sharing of how I liked, or disliked it.

And rule number two, by the way, says that I have no business telling you what you should or should not like.

I totally get why you liked him.

If you liked him.

For me, it was just a little too, for lack of a better word, vanilla.

At the same time....

In a world with, literally, thousands of them, guess what is still, hands down, the most popular flavor of ice cream.

Right.

That's pretty cool...pretty cool.

You know?