The Real Reason Jay Leno Doesn’t Do Comedy Specials
While it only makes the news when he falls down a 60-foot hill and messes up his face, Jay Leno plays a ton of live shows throughout the year. And he doesn’t just perform in big cities, he’ll happily take his stand-up act to more modest venues in smaller markets where a Hampton Inn is considered the height of luxury.
Which, when you think about it, is a little unusual for big-name late-night hosts. When he retired from The Tonight Show, Johnny Carson didn’t pack his schedule with small-town casino shows. And you wouldn’t see David Letterman risking his life to grab a bite to eat at Dino’s Sports Lounge.
Obviously Leno loves doing stand-up, but that begs the question: Why not release a stand-up special? In a time when streaming services are regularly churning out hour-long specials, wouldn’t it be only natural for Leno to have, say, a Netflix special that most of us ignore while scrolling to find a reality show about random crap that may or may not be cake?
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“I like to tell jokes,” Leno recently told People.com. “People (say), ‘You should do like a Netflix special.’ I don’t wanna do it once and get a big check. I’d rather do it a hundred times and get a bunch of smaller checks, you know what I mean? It’s more fun for me. That’s what I like.” Leno also pointed out that thanks to this arrangement, “You can try things out and see how they work.”
He’s had this opinion for a while now. In a 2019 interview with the Netflix Is a Joke podcast, Leno also argued that stand-up should be a “shared experience” and likened watching a special on one’s iPhone to watching stand-up through the window of a comedy club.
One important detail that Leno omitted is that filming and releasing a special would likely force him to come up with new material. He admitted as much during an interview with KOST 103.5 FM in 2023, pointing out that once an act has been documented in a special “you can never do that material again — ever.”
He then recounted how an unnamed comedian came on The Tonight Show to promote a special and told Leno that he’d continue doing the same jokes on the road, arguing that it’s “like hearing a song.” But after returning from the tour, he confessed to the host that he regretted it. “They’re watching it for free at home, now they’re paying $45 whatever it is, to hear the same thing they just heard for free,” Leno argued. “You can’t get greedy. You can’t take the Netflix money and the personal appearance money.”
Of course, the obvious solution to this problem would be to write new material. While Leno has worked some observations about smartwatches and streaming TV into his act, he’s still doing jokes about Bill Clinton and Shaft. Writing new material doesn’t really seem to be his forte.
Which is too bad, because he could probably get a whole hour out of that hill story alone.
