In the same New York Times interview that saw David Letterman blast his former employers at CBS as “lying weasels” over their handling of Stephen Colbert’s exit, the late-night legend also touched on an unexpected topic: the possibility of sitting down with his old rival, Jay Leno.
Asked whether he could imagine booking Leno on his Netflix series My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, Letterman sounded open—if not exactly all-in.
“We think about it from time to time,” he responded. “This is not a bad idea. In answer to your question, of course I would love to. I’m sorry, did I say ‘love’? Of course I can imagine having Jay.”
He added, with a nod to Leno’s early stand-up reputation: “When I was a kid, he was the funniest man in comedy. So, just based on that alone, why wouldn’t you?”
For longtime late-night watchers, even that qualified openness is notable. Relations between Leno and Letterman, who both came up in the Los Angeles comedy scene and shared the screen dozens of times on Letterman’s NBC series, grew frosty amid the 1992 succession drama following Johnny Carson’s retirement. Despite Carson’s reported preference for Letterman, NBC handed The Tonight Show to Leno, prompting Letterman’s exit to CBS and setting off a ratings battle—and an on-again, off-again war of words—that would stretch across two decades.
Though the two appeared together in a Super Bowl promo for The Late Show in 2010, a more substative reunion has remained elusive.
When Leno wrapped his run in 2014, he invited Letterman to participate. Letterman declined. A year later, Letterman extended the same invitation to Leno, who also demurred, later telling Adweek, “I asked Dave to do a 10-second tape for us [when I left]. They said no, they didn’t want to do it. Well, why am I going to run all the way to New York? I mean, quid pro quo. I just said, “No, that’s kind of silly.”
Both have spoken more warmly about each other in retirement, although Letterman’s walk-back—from “love” to “I can imagine”—suggests that even if a the two did reunite on My Next Guest, it might fall short of a lovefest.
