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Jay Leno: My show, in detail
(AP)
Couple days ago when Jay Leno was here, I promised that I'd post some of his quotes and observations from his TCA session. Thanks to the hard-working people who run the TV Critics Association and the hard-working transcribers, I can give you Jay's comments in technicolor now.
He gave signficant detail this week on his new show - one of the most important and risky launches in NBC history. What will this new venture be? Let Jay tell you...
"The set is interesting. It’s a lot bigger
than our old set. There’s no desk. We might use a
desk in the last 15 minutes because I’m trying to
think of some better way to do headlines. But it
won’t be a talk show, and it won’t be a variety show
with wigs and hats on and things of that nature. We
have a number of correspondents. And we have some
featured people. I was thrilled. I spoke to Brian
Williams from “The Nightly News” and said — who has a
wonderful sense of humor, if you saw him host
“Saturday Night Live.” And I said, “Would you be
willing to do something on a regular basis,
contributing perhaps things like stories that weren’t
good enough for ‘The Nightly News,’ this type of
stuff?” And he said yes, he would love to do it. So
he is going to, hopefully, hone his comedy chops on
our show. He’ll be a featured guest. Then we’re
going to introduce a lot of new correspondents. The
idea of having comedians coming on, doing their little
five-minute stand-up, and sitting down, there’s
nothing wrong with that. But to give it a bit more
punch, I’m hoping we can make some stars here. We’ve
found a number of people. D.L. Hughley will report on
politics in Washington. D.L. in D.C., more or less....
This kid named Mikey Day, very funny comedian. Rachael
Harris. You might have seen her from “The Hangover.”
We’ve got a lot of these people to go out and shoot
pieces for us, bring them to the studio, and we’ll show
them. And I think it will be — I think it will be a lot
of fun.
there’s an homage to that show. We built a racetrack
right next to the studio. We’re going to do something
called “the green car challenge.” You know, all
celebrities talk about being green. We want to see who
is green and fast. And we are working with a major
manufacturer now. They are building us some really,
really high-powered electric cars. They are as fast as
any race cars. And we will take the celebrity, put them
in the car, have them do a lap on the track and see who
is the fastest. They will have in-car cameras in there.
They can plow into a light post. They could roll the
thing. But I’ve told it to a number of stars, and in
fact, even Tom Cruise called and said, “Can I get in
there early and practice?” I said, “No, nobody gets to
practice. We put you in the car, and you try it out.” I
mean, the fun thing about it, there are a lot of people
who — people want to see, maybe perhaps athletes and
people like this that are not necessarily good talkers
but would be fun in this sort of environment to see if
Shaquille O’Neil is faster than Cameron Diaz. Obviously, Kevin Eubanks, our band leader, has
written a terrific theme song. Kevin worked very hard.
I think he’s got a great — he played it for me
yesterday. I was thrilled to hear it. That’s really
good. And we’ll start — the show will open, obviously,
with a monologue. The show will start (snaps fingers)
right now. It isn’t one of these long things where we
beow the hills of L.A. and then palm tree and then the
Hollywood sign and then here. The show will start within
9 to 12 seconds, “The Jay Leno Show,” boom, come out,
start with the jokes, get the show moving. We want to
keep it fast-paced. I think that’s the real key. You
don’t want to waste anybody’s time, you know. This is –
this is good food at sensible prices. Here’s a bunch of
jokes, a lot of jokes.
Tags: Jay Leno , NBC , Jay Leno Show , TCA
