A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

COUNTLESS SCREAMING ARGONAUTS: I really don't have that much to say about Jay Leno's fifteenth anniversary of assuming the Tonight Show reins, except to note yet again that Bill Carter's The Late Shift: Letterman, Leno and the Network Battle for the Night is simply one of the best pieces of reporting about any subject, ever (and it became a damn good HBO movie as well). As a tribute to the one-time pro wrestler, I want to repeat my favorite story from the book: even after Leno won the job and had replaced Carson, NBC executives still were considering axing him for the hipper Letterman, who was still on their lineup at 12:30am and obviously dissatisfied. So when the executives met in Boca Raton to discuss his fate, Jay Leno listened in:

After taping his show on Wednesday night, Jan. 6 [1993], Jay Leno dashed down to his dressing room to get back into jeans and a workshirt. As soon as he had changed clothes, he told his writers and producers that he was taking off. Saying some quick "See you tomorrows" he grabbed his shoulder bag and bolted.

"The Tonight Show" dressing room was one floor below ground level in Burbank. Leno dashed up the stairs, out into the broad hallway behind the stage and then outside, down the ramp toward the alley between the studio building and the main NBC office building. He dumped his bag in the cab of his black Chevy pickup and headed for NBC's back entrance, carrying a notebook under his arm. He didn't bother with the elevator but turned sharply and took the stairs to the second floor, where the NBC Entertainment division executives had their offices. It was getting close to 7 P.M., and the place seemed completely cleared out. He moved quietly down the long hall toward the big, heavy glass doors of the executive suite.

He pushed his way in. Warren Littlefield's office was to his left; John Agoglia's to his right. Jay moved into the darkened room where Agoglia's assistant and secretary worked. He knew where he was going. He slipped past the secretary's desk toward a door at the back of the room.

The room behind it was small, dark and crowded, like a closet, with a photocopier, fax machines and a shredder. Pushed up against a wall was a small desk where guests of the executives could sit to use a phone in private. Jay pulled the door closed behind him. Then he eased himself into the chair and arranged his notebook on the desk. His setup was complete. The phone before him would tell him when the conference call from Boca was coming in. Now all he had to do was sit in the dim light in this cramped closet of an office -- and wait....

Back in Burbank, adjacent to the office where Ludwin and Cardinal were loudly arguing over the speaker phone, Jay Leno sat in his gloomy closet, listening in intently, scribbling notes on his pad. The whole thing struck him as wildly funny; he felt like Huck Finn overhearing the mourners at his own funeral.... Jay Leno was edgy and excited. He had sat in his tiny room with the photocopier and the shredder and overheard the entire conference. He had taken notes on all of it, and now he had specific quotations on what people thought of him and his show. Best of all he knew exactly who was for him and who was against him. It had been intense and sort of thrilling, Jay concluded, like the Hardy boys hiding in a cave to figure out a mystery. Jay was proud of himself. He had taken some action. At one point the thought had crossed his mind: What if somebody opens the door and finds me in here? But in a second he laughed that off. "What are they going to do?" he thought, suppressing another laugh. "Fire me?"

It's a shame that the Jay Leno who was gutsy and shrewd enough to pull that off hasn't been seen much in the 3377 shows he's hosted. (Wow. Katie Couric hosted one night, but that's it. The man just guzzles workahol.) But back when he was only guest-hosting for Johnny Carson in 1990, Leno invited an obscure band named They Might Be Giants to the show. Watch them rock the heck out of "Birdhouse in Your Soul" with Doc Severinsen and a lot of brass instruments behind them.