Jay Leno, The Tonight Show
Jay Leno's reign as host of The Tonight Show ended on an appropriately high note, as the NBC talker delivered its best-ever Friday ratings in Leno's 17-year run.
The exact overnights — an 8.8/20 in metered-market households — represent more than double (a 126 percent increase) The Tonight Show's second-quarter average.
Leno's Tonight Show sign-off also served up the program's best ratings since President Obama's March 19 visit. Excluding that milestone, it was the show's biggest draw in more than four years, since a January 2005 tribute to Johnny Carson.
Leno's final Tonight Show was veritably celebrity-free, save for a performance by James Taylor. Instead, the venerable host reflected on the highlights of his tenure and cued up "best of" montages of such segments as "Jay-walking."
In his monologue, Leno thanked three people who made his 17-year run such a success ...
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Jay Leno
Why doesn't anyone seem too worked up about Jay Leno leaving The Tonight Show? Maybe because he's only kind of leaving. Come fall, fans will still get to see him five nights a week, 90 minutes earlier. As we look ahead to the start of a new Tonight Show era Monday, with Conan O'Brien behind the desk, let's also look back on the most memorable moments of Leno's 17 years with the show.
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Mel Gibson, Jon and Kate Plus Eight
It's been a big week for family feuds. Rescue Me's Tommy had to deal with his demons, Breaking Bad's Walt had a crisis on the homefront, and even the Republican Party had to decide... Okay, look. We're just bringing up family because we want to talk Jon & Kate. The whole situation freaks us out. Just like a certain number seems to freak parents out. You'll see what we mean at the end of our Top Moments, crazy eights edition.
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Don't Forget the Lyrics
Don't Forget the Lyrics!
8 pm/ET FOX
The Wayne Brady-hosted music gamer welcomes Howard Stern's producer (and frequent target of abuse), Gary Dell'Abate, aka Baba Booey, who faces the music in a lyrical test for charity. Baba won't go bye-bye without a fight. Singer Mark McGrath of the rock band Sugar Ray, no stranger to remembering lyrics, is on hand to offer help. There's a profound element to tonight's game as Dell'Abate tries to raise money for LIFEbeat, a music-industry charity in the fight against AIDS. Dell'Abate's brother, Steven, died of AIDS in 1991.
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Conan O'Brien
Show minus stars equals different show: It's one of the mantras of Jump the Shark, and it's true — unless, maybe, the show is The Tonight Show.
The Tonight Show is an institution that has had only four full-time hosts in more than half a century. Jack Paar, Steve Allen, Johnny Carson and Jay Leno all made their own imprints on the show, but in the way a minister does a church. Whether or not congregants like his or her personality or jokes, the basic religion stays the same.
Leno is...
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Jay Leno
As Jay Leno says goodbye to The Tonight Show, audiences can look back on several historic moments that took place during his watch: Barack Obama became the first sitting president to appear on a late-night show. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced his candidacy for California's gubernatorial race. And perhaps most memorably, Hugh Grant explained why he picked up a hooker.
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Mel Gibson and Jay Leno
Mel Gibson took responsibility for the end of his 28-year marriage and happily confirmed his girlfriend is expecting his eighth child: "I guess I'm Octo-Mel."
Gibson was the first of several special guests stopping by this week to celebrate the last week of Jay Leno's 17-year run at the Tonight Show.
Leno also asked about reports that Gibson's 39-year-old Oksana Grigorieva girlfriend is pregnant. "This is true. We're gonna have a child," Gibson said. He also ...
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In Treatment
The Bachelorette
8 pm/ET ABC
Jillian Harris, the busiest executioner in Bachelorette history, lopped off 10 heads last week and still has 20 to go. Four rose warriors will end up roseless tonight, and four won't get to go on either group or one-on-one dates with Jillian. We'll see how those lists match up, but first, one man accompanies her to a private Martina McBride show, and seven others play basketball with the Harlem Globetrotters. Then, at the rose ceremony, the guys get to help Jillian reduce their number to 16.
Read on for previews of Jon & Kate Plus 8, In Treatment, Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Time/Anderson Cooper 360: The World's Most Influential People.
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Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien
Jay Leno will trade laughs and perhaps share words of wisdom with his final Tonight Show guest — Conan O'Brien.
The outgoing Tonight Show host announced during a conference call Thursday that he will wrap up his 17-year run on May 29 with his successor, O'Brien, in the guest seat. O'Brien will take over Tonight on June 1.
"I'm glad that it's going to be Conan," Leno said. "It couldn't ...
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Jay Leno
Mel Gibson, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Billy Crystal are ready to share a last laugh with Jay Leno.
The stars are among the big-name guests lined up for Leno's final week as host of The Tonight Show, beginning ...
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