Jay Leno's Legacy on "The Tonight Show" and the Celebration of Stupidity

While it seems that Leno's departure from "The Tonight Show" is getting as much of a rousing finish as Johnny Carson managed 17 years ago, the chances are fair to good that we'll be seeing the very same show next fall when Leno moves to the 10 p.m. slot. Yes, the debates will probably commence soon whether Leno should tinker with his show to make it more comfortable (or, let's say creative) for a different audience who may have never stayed up to watch a late night show. Certainly having a so-called comedy show on in prime time will help audiences who've likely grown tired of grim medical and legal shows dominating that slot for the last 20 years if not longer. But if Leno ultimately does the same show he's always done, we may continue to see one segment on his show that's as equally grim as a horrific murder plot on "Law & Order."

If anything is being considered removed from Leno's comedy bits during the prime-time show, it should be his Jaywalking segments that have consistently celebrated something we don't need now or ever in America: The populace who either really is or pretending to be intellectually bankrupt. Obviously, Leno has always played up the tired joke that people who live in Hollywood (or beautiful downtown Burbank) are going to have some of the lowest I.Q.'s in the nation if not the world. Yet when every single person Leno trots before the camera acts this way and then gets more time on camera than any of the celebrity guests, it starts to become an already stale comedy experiment gone wrong.

The worst part of Jaywalking wasn't so much in the street segments, but more in that Leno continued to play up the stupidity of some of our Americans by having them later compete in a Jeopardy takeoff called "Battle of the Jaywalk All-Stars." Again, the point is driven home that a chunk of America's recent generations are horrifically ill-equipped intellectually to take on anything let alone understanding anything about history.

After 17 years of Leno instigating this segment, it's been more grating than funny the last few years. Particularly when we realize the joke is over during a time of crisis and need our next generations to be as cerebral as they can possibly muster, seeing someone act stupid now just warrants a brick thrown at the TV if not a quick turn of the channel over to...well, torch-bearer of the dumb: David Letterman.

With such an abrupt reminder of turning from Leno's celebration of stupidity to Letterman's longstanding celebration of the dumb guy, it might be tempting to think that building up the intellectually challenged has been a constant on TV. Then we remember while watching Letterman that his act of being stupid has always been full of ironical intelligence. Ultimately, Letterman has always looked brilliant playing up being stupid when it's always helped to know he's, in reality, a generally intelligent person capable of smart comedy and rare, serious interviews. Letterman's brand of comedy hit its peak, in my opinion, during his serious post-9/11 shows where we finally saw evidence of his intelligence in doing serious interviews that ultimately gave the dumb guy persona a stronger sense of irony.

Leno, during the same time period, just continued to trot out one dumb person after another on the streets of Burbank to be mocked by the masses. Or has his show been jerking our chain all this time?
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One thing we've realized about late-night television or any talk show: If the show is overly cerebral, it won't make it...at least on network TV. The only longstanding exception to this is the consistently high-caliber Charlie Rose show on PBS, which is the true bastion for people in late night who get worn out at stupid being celebrated on Leno and Letterman. And, of course, there used to be "Nightline" before losing its relevance since the departure of Ted Koppel. Besides the spate of intelligent late-night talk shows, most people unsurprisingly tune in to get laughs and be entertained--no matter how unfunny it really is or even painful.

I've wondered for a long time now what the American populace really thinks with Jay Leno's Jaywalking segments. Never can I watch that without thinking at least half of the audience watching are cringing and feeling that the point being driven home now grates on the nerves. If only those people could be seen during the Jaywalking segment (yeah, show wincing faces when a moron is shown not having a clue who George Washington was), an ironical comedic point could be made while showing how deeply depressing it really is.

Now stupidity has become so accepted, Jay Leno just accepts these people for what they are. While he does belittle them for the sake of comedy, the message is also sent that if you act stupid, you'll get rewarded by being on TV...if not even more time on TV during the Jaywalk All-Stars. Then again, with the well-known formula in reality shows of staging things for the sake of drama or comedy, it's a wonder someone hasn't asked Leno whether those Jaywalkers are for real or just pretending to be stupid so they can get more TV time.

If we've learned anything from reality TV, it's that those who look and act stupid really aren't. In fact, you can say that of most to all of the pop culture figures we've seen throughout the decades who were stigmatized as being dumb. Sometimes, eerily, we find out the ones who were thought to be Mensa level had I.Q. levels close to a primate. (In the event you want to extend that to U.S. Presidents, be my guest.) In the world of reality TV, however, you'll find stupidity as an entertainment device just to create laughs and to mock people as reality shows have long held as their prime directive.

Jay Leno's legacy on "The Tonight Show" will always be noted for being slightly more meaningful than celebrating stupidity. But is it possible he brought the concept of reality shows to the fore and suggested some of those Jaywalkers act stupid when they really weren't? Only Jay will have to reveal it, even though he'll likely keep that quiet as Jaywalking continues on the 10 p.m. "Jay Leno Show."

To keep the new 10 p.m. audience from wanting to hide under their beds in disgust at their fellow human beings, we'll hope that those intellect-challenged Jaywalkers are pretending rather than painfully real. So why doesn't Leno's show just look for people who think they're smart and really aren't? There, you have something that's truly funny and an undoing of those who may just get into powerful positions someday (stick another Presidency analogy here) and make a mess of things after we find out they should have been a Jaywalk All-Star...