What Jay Leno Should Say In His 'Tonight Show' Monologue

Today brought another anonymously-sourced story speculating on the future of "The Tonight Show." NY Times journalist Bill Carter had a piece today on NBC's plans to move the show to NYC's Rockefeller Center studios when Jimmy Fallon takes over the show sometime next year. Sure, he hasn't actually signed the contract and given the way that NBC executives keep leaking these stories it's unlikely they have gotten current host Jay Leno to give his blessing. But why not float the story anyway just to make sure everyone is as riled up as possible?

For his part Jay Leno hasn't made any public comments, although he has made one joke per night about the situation during Monday and Tuesday night's shows.

He's not likely to increase the number much during tonight's monologue, but if it were me, I'd have as much fun as I could at NBC's expense. After all, what are they going to do, replace him?

Now I don't claim to be a writer of monologue jokes, but I had fun with these. I tried to write them in a style that fit Leno's delivery:

"I had a busy day, I spent most of the afternoon on Craigslist, looking for an apartment in New York City."

"Over the weekend I watched this interview with Larry King where he talked about his last days at CNN. He said as he got older, his bosses lost faith in him and wanted to replace him with someone younger. Man, I can't imagine what THAT feels like."

"I'll be the first to admit that I have been at NBC a very long time. Yeah, I've been here so long I remember when we were number one in the ratings."

"Now my contract with NBC is up this year and it's natural that some network executives would be wondering when I'm going to leave. I don't mind that...but it does bug me a bit how they're keeping track of it" (Cut to shot of large countdown clock, with the title "Jay Leno Retirement Clock.")

"There have been some stories in the past few days that have speculated about the future of the show and I got call today from an NBC executive. He told me not to believe everything I read and that the network knew what it was doing. That made me feel better, because if there's one thing NBC executives know how to do, it's how to smoothly change hosts on 'The Tonight Show."

"But whatever happens, I plan to still be on television, working at the best network on television" (Cut to shot of the cast of "Duck Dynasty," with a heavily bearded Leno photoshopped into the image)

"It's been a tough week. You know you're having a bad time at NBC when Conan O'Brien starts feeling bad for you."

"But all of this is just some of the changes happening at NBC. There's also a big push to add more technology at the network because it can make things more efficient. For instance this Fall, when network executives have to quickly cancel a show, they're going to make the call on Skype."