Production on the Fox syndicated game show You Bet Your Life has halted amid the ongoing writers strike. Series host Jay Leno, who has been seen at multiple picket lines delivering donuts, supports the move. “As a member of the Writers Guild for almost 40 years, I truly understand and stand in solidarity with my fellow union members,” Leno said in a statement. “For that reason, we are suspending production of our game show, You Bet Your Life until such time when an agreement can be reached.”
The comedian and former Tonight Show host told a Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Thursday that he broke his collarbone and two ribs and cracked his kneecaps on Jan. 17.
The host has had a presence on at least one of NBC’s channels since he took over The Tonight Show in 1992.
Jay Leno was released today from the Grossman Burn Center 10 days after suffering burns to his face, hands and chest in a gasoline fire in his Burbank garage. “I am pleased with Jay’s progress, and I am optimistic that he will make a full recovery,” Dr. Peter Grossman of the Grossman Burn Center said in a statement. The center also released a photo of Leno with some of the hospital staff. The picture shows Leno with visible burn scars on his face, chin and neck.
The former Tonight Show host was in good condition and his wife, Mavis, is with him at the Grossman Burn Center north of Los Angeles, said Peter H. Grossman, medical director of the center at West Hills Hospital. “He is in good spirits today,” Grossman told a televised news conference. Last weekend, Leno suffered burns to his face, hands and chest that the plastic surgeon categorized as second-degree or verging on more severe.
Exclusives
Jay Leno Says Former ‘Tonight Show’ Staffer Is Why He Stopped Telling Jokes About Transgender People
On the podcast Howie Mandel Does Stuff, he tells Leno he should have publicly defended himself in the Tonight Show rivalries of decades past, when Leno and David Letterman and then Leno and Conan O’Brien tussled over the plum job of host.
TVNewsCheck‘s Michael Depp talks with latenight legend Jay Leno about his reboot of the classic game show You Bet Your Life this month, the pandemic’s bruising impact on young comics’ careers and if he misses manning The Tonight Show desk in these volatile times.
The former Tonight host navigates the new social standards for comedy in a game show revival.
The return of the classic game show hosted by Jay Leno has been sold in 190 U.S. markets to station groups including Sinclair, Nexstar, Scripps, Tegna, Meredith, Gray, Hearst, McKinnon, Standard Media, Block, Lockwood, Mission and Sun Broadcasting. It launches on Sept. 13.
Jay Leno has apologized for anti-Asian jokes he made on The Tonight Show stemming back two decades. In a joint press statement released Wednesday with the Media Action Network for Asian Americans, Leno admitted that he knew in his heart the jokes were wrong.
Fox Television Stations says this new incarnation of the legendary game show — hosted by Jay Leno — “will preserve the show’s trademark humorous interviews and unpredictable banter with each contestant, famously originated by Groucho Marx.”
NEWPORT, R.I. (AP) — Former “Tonight Show” host Jay Leno and his wife have purchased an oceanfront estate in Newport, Rhode Island. The Boston Globe reports Leno, who grew up in Andover, […]
Is It Finally Time To Forgive Jay Leno?
Jay Leno remains an in-demand comic — and to some, a latenight pariah.
Why Letterman Surpassed Leno As Comic, Host
Jay Leno returned to his Tonight Show stomping grounds, making an unannounced cameo during Jimmy Fallon’s opening monologue Tuesday night. Leno’s appearance comes as a surprise, though the timing is no mistake: his upcoming show Jay Leno’s Garage premieres Wednesday on NBC’s sister network, CNBC, so his spot makes for a perfect in-house promotion.
NATPE Honors Six With Tartikoff Awards
At the 12th anniversary Brandon Tartikoff Legacy Awards on Wednesday evening, Jay Leno, the last of the half dozen honorees to appear, spoke from the heart about what Tartikoff had meant to him. Tartikoff, who died in 1997 at age 48, had been head of NBC Entertainment when Leno was first starting his career, back when the comedian first appeared on The Tonight Show, which then starred Johnny Carson.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Comedian Jay Leno canceled a planned appearance at a firearms trade show on the Las Vegas Strip after learning that a group representing victims of gun […]
The show’s former host will be a guest on Jimmy Fallon’s version of Tonight on Friday. It will be the first time he’s been back at the NBC institution since signing off after nearly 22 years as host last February.
Jimmy Fallon, Jerry Seinfeld and Wanda Sykes celebrated Leno’s famous work ethic and poked fun as he received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the Kennedy Center in Washington. Garth Brooks, Kevin Eubanks and Chelsea Handler also paid tribute. The show will be broadcast nationally Nov. 23 on PBS.
Jay Leno is lining up his first regular television hosting gig since leaving The Tonight Show in February, and he’s staying in the NBCUniversal family. Leno is close to a deal to host a new show for cable network CNBC, sources say. The show will focus on Leno’s longtime love of cars and will air in primetime, not latenight.
Tartikoff Awards For Blue, Leno, Sarandos
Netflix’s Ted Sarandos, Jay Leno, Entertainment Tonight alum Linda Bell Blue and producer Jonathan Murray are among the industry notables set to receive the Brandon Tartikoff Legacy Awards on Jan. 21 at the NATPE confab in Miami Beach.
Former “Tonight Show” host Jay Leno will return to NBC this week to mentor comedians on Last Comic Standing. As the five final comics face off Thursday, Leno will provide counsel on the ins and out of standup. Host JB Smoove introduces Leno to the comics by telling them they’re about to meet “one of the funniest comedians in the world.”
Jay Leno will be honored with the nation’s top humor honor in a performance by his fellow comedians Oct. 19 in Washington. The show will be broadcast nationally Nov. 23 on PBS stations.
Other inductees by the Television Academy this year are Julia Louis-Dreyfus; David E. Kelley; and former ABC executive Brandon Stoddard, who shepherded breakthrough shows including Roots. Sound pioneer Ray Dolby was inducted posthumously.
Calling himself “the luckiest guy in the world,” Jay Leno went out on top, which was where he stayed for most of his stretch as the successor to “King of Late Night” Johnny Carson. His exit, not entirely by choice, now clears the deck for yet another chapter of the 60-year-old talk show, with Fallon taking over as NBC’s Tonight moves back to New York from its longtime Los Angeles home on Feb. 17. “You’re very kind,” Leno told his audience at the start of his last monologue. “I don’t like goodbyes. NBC does. I don’t care for them.”
Leno Ties 15-Month High To Start Final Week
Jay Leno’s final week as host of The Tonight Show got off to a strong start Monday night. Tonight matched its best metered-market household rating in 15 months, as well as the show’s best Monday rating in almost four years. Tonight posted a 3.9 household rating at 11:35 p.m., tying with last Friday as the show’s highest-rated program since President Barack Obama visited on Oct. 24, 2012, a night Leno drew a 4.0.
“It’s been a wonderful job but this is the right time to leave,” says Leno, whose once-dark mop of hair is now a neatly groomed silver. “I’m at that age where I don’t really listen to the [current] music anymore. I’m not a big tweet guy. A 63-year-old guy reading Miley Cyrus’ tweets is a little creepy. Move on.” Leno is planning to expand the comedy club gigs he never abandoned and various outlets for his automotive passion, including the Web show “Jay Leno’s Garage,” and the magazine and newspaper pieces he writes. He insists his schedule won’t include another latenight show,
In an interview with CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes, the comedian opens up about the upcoming Tonight transition and shares kind words for Jimmy Fallon: He “is probably more like a young Johnny [Carson] than almost anybody since.”
The latenight show host will be without a TV job in February and now courting him is the architect of the Tonight Show debacle, Jeff Zucker, along with Tribune, American Idol‘s Core Media and even ex-NBC chief Jeff Gaspin.
The Jay Leno-hosted Tonight Show will air its last episode on Feb. 6 and, per terms of his show exit deal with NBC, the cast and crew will be paid until his contract expires in September. Tonight EP Debbie Vickers made the announcement today to the staffers at the show, informed sources report.
