My favorite ad of the night:
Here’s the story of how the ad came together, including this nugget: to film the ad, Leno “enter[ed] the Ed Sullivan Theater during the taping of Letterman’s show [last Tuesday], when there’s often commotion from fans on Broadway, but Leno wore a disguise: ‘A hooded sweatshirt, dark sunglasses and a fake moustache,’ says Burnett. ‘He snuck into Broadway into the back lobby,’ and from there, to a 10th-floor office.” Heh!
Suppose there are two possible outcomes for Leno when he returns to the Tonight Show after the Olympics:
1) The gravity from his historic failure in the 10 PM slot, along with the gravity of the fallout from his duplicity regarding the likeable, if unsuccessful, Conan O’Brien, sinks his show and career.
2) People forget about the 10 PM failure and things return to business-as-usual at 11:30, with the time slot once again defined by the rivalry between Letterman and Leno (a rivalry that Leno has been winning for the past 15 years or so).
I think its pretty clear that one of these outcomes is in Letterman’s interest, and one isn’t. All that said, its mind-blowingly self-defeating for Letterman to put out this promo.
Its been argued that one reason why Letterman lost the Tonight Show was because he figured that since everyone (including, particularly, Carson) liked him way more than Leno, the job would be his without ruthlessness. Its also been argued – well not really argued, it was transparently on display – that Letterman’s NBC years were characterized by self-hatred.
Both self-hatred and lack of ruthlessness are on display in this silly, self-defeating ad.