Jay Leno participates within the "Jay Leno's Storage" panel on the The NBCUniversal Summer season TCA Tour on the Beverly Hilton Lodge in Beverly Hills, Calif. on Aug. 13, 2015. (Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)
LOS ANGELES --
Howie Mandel has a bone to choose along with his longtime buddy Jay Leno.
On the podcast "Howie Mandel Does Stuff," he tells Leno he ought to have publicly defended himself within the "Tonight Present" rivalries of a long time previous, when Leno and David Letterman after which Leno and Conan O'Brien tussled over the plum job of host.
"That is what bothers me about you, you did not change the narrative" and have been painted because the dangerous man, Mandel stated on Tuesday's Apple podcast. "The vitriol that folks have been attaching you with, and folks that we each know."
Leno, who hosted "Tonight" for a mixed 22 years after Johnny Carson retired, insisted that the general public has zero curiosity in listening to celebrities gripe.
"That labored for me by not whining, by not complaining," Leno stated. "You get an entire silent majority of individuals to go, 'Hey, I like the very fact you simply put your nostril to the grindstone and did the work."'
An admitted workaholic, Leno performs stand-up and hosts the sport present "You Guess Your Life," with Kevin Eubanks, and the car-buff collection "Jay Leno's Storage." On Mandel's podcast, he supplied his tackle profitable "Tonight," dropping it briefly and regaining it.
He and Letterman have been amongst Carson's visitor hosts earlier than Letterman launched NBC's "Late Evening"' in 1982 within the post-"Tonight" time slot. Letterman appeared positioned to succeed Carson when the enduring "King of Late Evening" retired in 1992, however he and Leno fought for the throne.
"I used to be filling in for Johnny at 11:30, and the scores have been holding and doing properly. And that is the principle cause" NBC selected him, Leno stated. However he recalled listening to chatter that claimed, "Dave had the present, and I got here in sooner or later and demanded it and took it away."
"Effectively, no, you may't demand it," Leno stated.
Mandel raised the competitors between Leno and O'Brien for "Tonight." O'Brien, who had taken over the slot opened by Letterman's exit from NBC (beginning "Late Present" at CBS), was tapped to exchange Leno in a bid to attract a youthful viewers.
"My favorite factor was after they (NBC) got here to me" with the meant plan, Leno recalled. "I stated, 'Hey, I have been No. 1 (within the scores) for 14 years.' And I am not going to say which government stated, "We wish what's above No. 1."'
However NBC's scheme, which had Leno announce his retirement 5 years earlier than the 2009 swap to O'Brien, proved a PR catastrophe for the community. "I do not know if it is potential to have a much less orderly transition than Leno-O'Brien," media analyst Brad Adgate stated later.
O'Brien's barely eight-month "Tonight" tenure ended after NBC, panicked by a drop in scores, sought to place Leno in a half-hour 11:35 p.m. present and push O'Brien to post-midnight.
O'Brien refused, moved to TBS, and Leno reclaimed "Tonight" and competed with Letterman till 2014, when Leno was changed by new host Jimmy Fallon. Letterman retired in 2015, succeeded by Stephen Colbert.
Leno, whose acquainted, mainstream comedy on "Tonight" was in contrast unfavorably by some to Letterman's iconoclastic humor, allowed himself some low-key gloating.
"My angle was Letterman will get the cool youngsters and the critics, and I will take the favored vote," he informed Mandel. "That is just about the way it labored out."
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