The Leno Wit: His Life and Humor

Discusses Jay Leno's unique sense of humor, from his days as a New England schoolboy to his role as the top-rated late-night TV talk-show host, and examines some of the challenges and conflicts he faced to make it to where he is today.

This readable if derivative look at Tonight Show host Jay Leno comes on the heels of Leno's own Leading with My Chin and Bill Carter's The Late Shift. Thus, the former book is a better compilation of Leno's anecdotes while the latter is a more comprehensive account of Leno's duel with David Letterman. Walker seems to have scavenged any published interview with or story about Leno to lightly tell the tale of the comic's rise in show business and the struggle for late-night talk-show supremacy. Thus Walker can report on Leno's nice-guy personality and lack of emotion without delving into the comedian's particular psychology. Nor does he critique Leno's proclamation that he does not wield political humor to change his audience's views. But freelance writer Walker does include a generous helping of Leno's jokes and the comedian's theorizing about them, making this book an entertaining exercise for fans who must have even one more Leno book.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A mash note to the current king of the late-night talk shows. For almost five years now, Jay Leno has hosted the Tonight Show, one of American entertainment's great institutions. To get there, he served a hard apprenticeship on the comedy club circuit, touring ceaselessly, playing almost any club that asked. He also worked endlessly at his craft, perfecting his timing, honing his jokes. But despite paying his dues and his growing national visibility, Leno found that succeeding Johnny Carson was an unexpectedly difficult challenge. Critics thought Leno's version of the show was stiff, awkward, and unfocused. And audiences seemed to agree: Ratings sank, and David Letterman was very publicly considered as a replacement. Leno eventually won this battle, and Letterman moved to his own rival show, on which he trounced Leno regularly. Then Leno revamped the show, beginning a long battle back to ratings dominance. These maneuvers and campaigns were recently and expertly covered by Bill Carter in his thorough and entertaining book The Late Shift (not reviewed). Apart from a strong pro-Leno slant, New Yorkbased Walker rarely offers more than a rehash of Carter's work, as well as the sort of broad details and shopworn anecdotes that seem gleaned from celeb interviews in glossy mags. Walker does offer extensive examples of Leno's observational and topical humor. (Leno explained his brand of humor by saying, ``I just travel the country and identify the absurd.'') He also details in some depth Leno's comic process, how he builds and structures his jokes, always seeking ``to get to the punchline as quickly as possible.'' Walker, unfortunately, does not share his subject's unerring concision. He is given to frequent repetitions, tangled syntax, and much belaboring of the obvious. This is more a silhouette than a full-fledged biographical portrait, and no competition for Leno's own current bestseller. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

The most notable thing about Walker's take on the reigning late-night TV king is the frequency with which he calls Leno a "nice guy." Of course, Walker portrays Leno's main rival, David Letterman, as a nice guy, too. The villain here is, instead, Leno's erstwhile manager Helen Kushnik, who is abetted in subterfuge, gambits, and other evildoings by network execs who seem as vapid a bunch of guys in gray as ever there was. Ultimately, the emphasis on nice guyness wears a bit thin, what with Walker reminding us time and again of how this limits Leno's humor--that is, he can do no sex or sexist jokes, he must be evenhanded politically, etc.--but overall this is an enjoyable look at a successful entertainer, tricked out with enough signature Leno witticisms and enough juicy details about such showbiz machinations as the jockeying to replace Carson and the dumping of Branford Marsalis to compensate for the lack of scandalmongering many may regret. Mike Tribby