Leno Won't Appear On Letterman When Conan Takes Over

What is it with people wanting Jay Leno to “stick it” to NBC? The Late Show with David Letterman offered Leno a spot on the show the night Conan takes over The Tonight Show, and it seems people really wanted him to do it. I guess I can see that being cool, since Leno hasn’t been on with Letterman in a long time. But what exactly is the point, except for him to pimp his new program coming out in Fall 2009? There’ll be plenty of time after Conan has been situated for Leno to make appearances on both programs to promote his primetime talk show.

In an interview with The New York Times Leno says that he doesn’t want to do that to Conan. It’ll be bad enough that Conan is going to find out how hard it is to keep his comedy on The Tonight Show, there’s no reason to kick him in the spleen just for the hell of it. Despite my dislike for Leno’s performance on The Tonight Show the guy has a long history of being an exemplary stand up comic. A fact that exists now in the long forgotten past.

I’m sure Leno will hop over to The Late Show for a guest spot at some point, but that night just isn’t the right time.