Jay Leno - Leading with My Chin (1996)

Leading with My Chin by Jay Leno

Johnny Carson survived the workload The Tonight Show required by negotiating his contract to share that load with other hosts. Guest hosts were a weekly expectation, and for the last six years of Carson's tenure, the regular guest host was Jay Leno. With Carson's retirement after 30 years hosting Tonight, NBC chose Leno (famously picked over Late Night host and critical darling David Letterman) to take over the late night institution. Jay Leno has not released a comedy album but did record an audiobook of his 1996 memoir Leading with My Chin published by HarperCollins's HarperAudio. (The book was published by the imprint HarperTorch.)

Jay Leno is adamant that he will never film a comedy special. As a lifetime stand-up road warrior, the potential of reaching millions and getting pennies in return has less value than charging full price from roomfuls of ordinary folks across America. And why give away material to audiences before performing it for them live? That practical mindset is probably why he never released a comedy album either. The closest he came to "giving away" material was through his memoir which he writes (and reads) as a string of humorous stories. They are delivered as if for the hundredth time with the embellishment you'd expect from a story a hundred times told. And by the hundred and first, the punchline still isn't good enough for the act. It's a longer form of storytelling comedy that Leno isn't particularly adept at, and he compensates—in the reading—with silly (unfunny) voices, comic overreactions to make dung heaps out of mole hills, and generally relying on his natural crutch of "louder is funnier."

Half the book is an ode to his parents. He lovingly tells stories about his mother and father and gives performance to their own more subtle and intrapersonal senses of humor. These stories and jokes clearly have sentimental value to Jay and are probably why he wrote the memoir in the first place. Meanwhile, his own life stories always seem to revolve around the remembrance of failed jokes past. He paints himself as a young, working comic who learned the craft the hard way, in front of hostile audiences while staying in seedy hotels, while also managing to not give away any material of financial value. What Jay Leno gives his parents, he denies himself. He might be able to save his routines for the next town, but what he ends up saving for posterity are just bad stories about bad jokes.

Here is Jay Leno's discography:

Jay Leno (1984 comedy routine on the Comedy Tonight compilation album)

Leading with My Chin

'Twas the Night Before Christmas (2000 reading on the NBC Celebrity Christmas compilation album)

Jay Leno's First Appearance on The Tonight Show

The First Episode of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno

Jay Leno Interviews a Presidential Candidate in 1999

Pass the Headphones!!

Dick Cavett - Talk Show: Confrontations, Pointed Commentary, and Off-Screen Secrets (2010)

A Christmas Story read by Dick Cavett (Watch on YouTube)

Dick Cavett got his start as a comedy writer by handing spec jokes to Jack Paar to use for his Tonight Show monologue. Some of those jokes made the air and, in time, made for a job as a contributing writer. Cavett would remain with Tonight through the early years of Carson's run before leaving for other pastures. He wrote for other talk show hosts (Merv Griffin and Jerry Lewis) and performed stand-up. A gradual move up the television ladder led Cavett to hosting a morning show on ABC. Its quality of guests and engaging interviews had ABC move him from the ill-suited A.M. slot to appose fellow Nebraskan (and fellow amateur magician) Johnny Carson in the late night slot. The first late night iteration of The Dick Cavett Show started in 1969 and lasted five years, but Dick Cavett would remain a talk show presence, on various channels, for 25 more. Eventually putting the variations of The Dick Cavett Show to rest, the next career move was writing the Dick Cavett blog (a.k.a. Talk Show: Dick Cavett Speaks Again,) an opinion column for the New York Times. Talk Show: Confrontations, Pointed Commentary, and Off-Screen Secrets, a collection of columns from 2007 to 2010, was published by Henry Holt and Company in 2010. Macmillan Audio Books published the audio version, read by the author, the same year.

Dick Cavett writes like he hosts a late night program: conversationally. Although he might repetitively bring up the same familiar anecdotes, childhood memories (both cherished and shameful,) and humorous one-liners from his comic heroes (especially from Groucho,) each time they're invoked, like good conversation, they unlock a different avenue of memories to meander down. And what a life to wander through...Dick Cavett has an intelligent man's tendency towards movie star worship and, abetted by enough wit, picking the right elevators, and eventually his talk shows, he willed a lifetime of meeting and befriending his heroes. The best of his blog entries relive Cavett's most memorable televised conversations with these stars. The retellings are told with enough storytelling acumen, contain enough backstage material, and close with cherished, private jokes that make the already known feel fresh, entertaining and insightful.

In between the celebrity nostalgia—where have all the movie stars gone—Cavett covers youthful memories (antics, magic, gymnastics, the good old days, Yale and an already abnormal number of celebrity encounters;) the opinion column's requisite political commentary (covering the closing years of the Bush White House and the following election with its big four personalities;) and indirect conversation—fanning the flames—with the comments section. He knows just how controversial to be. The opinions aren't forced and largely reasonable, but Cavett knows how to press buttons to goose engagement. He clearly enjoys the resulting discussion and furor as a career veteran of being commented on and takes it all in good fun. He is only occasionally deadly serious (see the Iraq War.)

Returning to his blog's lasting value, Cavett led the life of a super-connector: he was involved, often very personally, with so many stars, artists, writers and legends that he became a vessel for insights into their lives as well as his own rich existence. A lot of this value already existed through his myriad talk shows, but the blog (and book) further annotates the titanic personalities of the 20th century.

As a final note, Cavett writes often about his friendships with Jack Paar and Johnny Carson and occasionally his work for the Tonight Show. One of the last entries in this collection is a requisite commentary on the Tonight Show hosts, at this point in the blog series, yet to be. If you remember the late-aughts, you might remember why.

Here is the discography surrounding Dick Cavett's first recordings:

A Christmas Story (2004 audiobook)

The Family Audio Bible (2008 audiobook)

Oliver Twist (2009 audiobook)

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (2009 audiobook)

Talk Show: Confrontations, Pointed Commentary, and Off-Screen Secrets

Dick Cavett Returns to the Tonight Show

Dick Cavett on Blogging

Jack Paar on The Dick Cavett Show

Groucho Marx on The Dick Cavett Show

Norman Mailer, Gore Vidal, and Janet Flanner on The Dick Cavett Show

Bobby Fischer on The Dick Cavett Show

Pass the Headphones!!