The War for Late Night_ When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy - Bill Carter [212]
“Dave has an idea,” Rob said when Vickers returned the call; and he presented it to her. When Debbie finished laughing, which required several minutes, she took the idea directly to Jay—in private. She was already on board with the need for total secrecy.
“Remember the Super Bowl ad that Dave did with Oprah?” she began, as she outlined Letterman’s concept for Jay.
They were back on the phone with Burnett within five minutes.
On Tuesday, February 2, 2010, Jay Leno boarded NBC’s jet for New York. He had run the idea past Jeff Zucker, who embraced it just as quickly and enthusiastically as Jay had. It did mean canceling that night’s edition of the ten p.m. Jay Leno Show, which nobody gave a second thought.
Jay landed at Teterboro in New Jersey. A waiting car contained a disguise that a Letterman producer had prepared for him: fake mustache, glasses, hooded sweatshirt. They had worked it out that Jay would arrive at Letterman’s theater when Dave was in midshow so no audience hopefuls would still be lingering outside. Jay was escorted in through the Broadway entrance, under the big marquee, because crowds always lined up across from the entrance on Fifty-third Street, in case the show did some bit out on the street.
Jay was reasonably sure nobody saw his arrival; if they did, all they noticed was a guy in a hoodie. The producers brought Jay upstairs immediately, stashing him on the thirteenth floor in an unused room where he relaxed and snacked for about thirty-five minutes, listening to the distant laughter down in the theater. Then the door opened and Oprah Winfrey walked in. This was less than a week after Jay had sat down with Oprah for his much-talked-about interview, and they greeted each other warmly. Now all they had to do was wait for the show to end.
When it did, and every audience member had been cleared from the theater, Rob Burnett appeared and greeted his guests. He led them out and down to a secluded area of the building where a fake living room had been created on a set that the show used to pretape segments. And here was David Letterman. It was the first time Dave and Jay had laid eyes on each other in person in eighteen years.
The greeting wasn’t exaggerated or grand, but routine, like two guys who used to hang out a bit now happening to run into each other at somebody’s party. Handshakes, not hugs.
The conversation didn’t even touch on the issue that had dominated entertainment news for the previous month, nor the transcontinental punch lines they had exchanged. Instead it was all “Have you seen this guy and that guy from the old days at the Comedy Store?” To Jay it seemed he was picking up with Dave exactly where he had left off in 1992—and that this Dave, though a bit older and grayer, was still the exact same guy he had always known.
Right away Jay fell into the pattern he had always followed with Letterman: He tried to make him laugh. He knew Dave’s formal way with language and how certain turns of phrase amused him, so he pulled up a line that had worked on Dave before, saying, “The old Manson place has really changed.” The interaction felt so right to Jay that he relaxed totally—this was going to be a snap, just like the old days on Dave’s show.
Dave’s idea was simple: a fifteen-second segment, a promo designed to run in the second quarter of the game that Sunday night. The concept was the worst Super Bowl party ever.
They arranged themselves on the stage couch: Dave far right, Oprah in the middle, Jay far left. It would start with a one-shot of Dave complaining about the party, expand to a two-shot to show Oprah, and then the big reveal with Jay at the other end of the couch. Jay’s line: “Oh, he’s just saying that ’cause I’m here.” And Oprah would tell them both to be nice.
Dave asked for input. Jay suggested Dave not