The Chin Is In: Leno Will Stay at NBC

Critics left cold by victorious host's Tonight Show return

(NEWSER) - Jay Leno made his triumphant return to the helm of the Tonight Show last night. Critics say it was like he never left, although they're split on whether that's a good thing:

• The back-to-the future Tonight Show had "neither pop, nor sizzle, nor surprise, and no amount of cheerleading from unconvincingly hyper-first guest Jamie Foxx could make it seem otherwise," complains Steve Johnson in the Chicago Tribune.

Is there any joke that can save the big-chinned one?

(NEWSER) - The public has largely branded Jay Leno the villain in the Conan debacle, but if there’s anything that can repair the damage it’s a good joke right? So New York magazine asked a bunch of local comedians how The Chin should open tonight’s show. Their suggestions:

• “Ladies and gentlemen, the only reason you see me standing here is I was NBC's Plan B. Plan A involved the corpse of Johnny Carson and a lightning bolt.” —Jay Black

Tonight Show ad implies Conan O'Brien never belonged there

(NEWSER) - NBC aired the first promo for Jay Leno’s return to the Tonight Show last night, and it seems to include an underhanded dig at Conan O’Brien. The ad, a sequel to last year’s Super Bowl promo for the Jay Leno Show, shows a “10” decal flying off Leno’s sports car to reveal a new one: “11:35.” The mean part? The Beatles sing, “Get back to where you once belonged” in the background. More»

Ousting Conan was only the first step; Jimmy Fallon is next!

(NEWSER) - If you think about it, isn’t Jay Leno a lot like Hitler? After all, he's “a master of making secret demands for foreign territory and then acting like the wronged party,” reasons Joe Queenan, writing for the Wall Street Journal . Leno pretended he wanted only the first part of his old time slot, just as Hitler insisted he merely wanted to annex Sudetenland, not all of Czechoslovakia. More»

Network to produce 20 pilots next season

(NEWSER) - Now that NBC is nearly past the Jay Leno-Conan O'Brien fiasco, the network is refocusing on the job at hand: correcting a 5-year slide in ratings. The Leno gambit, which CEO Jeff Zucker described as an experiment in the "economics" of network television, represented the network's hope that Leno could draw viewers with a show that cost much less than scripted programming. Now NBC is taking the opposite approach. More»