jay leno (62 posts)

Happy New Moon weekend, everyone! We gotta hand it to Rob, Kristen and Taylor, they all worked so hard over the past month to promote their little vampire movie, which culminated last night in a three-way (pre-taped) interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Now they can all go back to their normal lives. For Taylor that means pumping iron and practicing back flips all day, while Rob and Kristen lurk around the shadows of Chateau Marmont.

But before we say goodbye to the gang until they resurface for Eclipse this summer, we thought we'd put together our favorite moments from the past week's talk show appearances. (And there were a lot of them—Ellen, Conan, Leno, Letterman, Jimmy Fallon, Today, Regis and Kelly.)

Usually they’re met with the same questions: Did you ever expect this to be so big? How is this movie different from the last? OMG, fans are so crazy, right? They scream so much! How did you bulk up to play Jacob Black? Are you dating Kristen? What do you think of your Barbie? Will you throw this football? (Both Taylor and Kristen had to do that, btw.)

Still, there were some fun moments to be had and we've compiled them all right here just in case you fell asleep while Taylor talked about his workout regime for the 13th time.

Let's see what we got:

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Chelsea Handler's dad must be so proud.

Playboy's December cover girl set herself up for the big reveal tonight on The Jay Leno Show, joking with the host that her pop was going to love it "because he thinks I'm very sexual."

Then Jay surprised Chelsea with a larger-than-life version of the leggy blonde's Playboy cover, featuring the Chelsea Lately host (who quit drinking for "like a day and a half" to get in shape) standing in some faux snow, clad in a barely there white bikini and tall cushy boots.

Handler demurred, however, when a slightly worked-up Jay encouraged her to strike a similar pose for the audience.

"We need the guy that airbrushed me to come back," she cracked.

Get more of Chelsea in Playboy after the jump!

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John Paul Filo/CBS

David Letterman might have thought that taking a week off from Late Show duties would at least temporarily decrease the bad publicity. Clearly, he thought wrong.

This time around, he has former scorned employee Nell Scovell to thank for bringing the subject of his indiscretions back under the microscope.

Scovell, one of the few female writers ever to be hired at Letterman HQ (or, for that matter, Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien HQ), is speaking writing out about her time working for the Top 10 boss via a short essay for Vanity Fair that paints her late '80s tenure on his NBC Late Night show as one marred by uncomfortable tension, hostile environments and sexual favoritism.

Scovell starts weaving her tale exactly where people want her to: in the gutter.

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Barbara Nitke/FOX

Should NBC have opted for Lipstick Jungle over Jay Leno? Should the CW have uprooted steady Smallville for The Vampire Diaries? And should Fox have fiddled with Fringe's time slot?

With the first month of the 2009-10 TV season in the books, it's time to look at how the new shows—and the old shows in new time slots—are faring compared to last fall's lineup.

Beware of some surprising answers in the latest ratings quiz.

1. And the winner is…Lipstick Jungle or Jay Leno? Leno. At this point, the comic's averaging about 2 million more people on Wednesdays at 10 p.m. than the late Brooke Shields series was. And, yes, while Leno's ahead because of his big premiere week, big premiere weeks count.

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Who knew Kate Gosselin had a sense of humor?!

Amid the octomom's dramatic back-and-forth with her estranged husband, Jon Gosselin, she somehow manages to shoot a sketch for The Jay Leno Show. And the so-called "MILF Meltdown" is hilarious.

As part of the "JMZ" series of paparazzi-mocking sketches, a handful of snappers descend on Kate in the parking lot of a grocery store. Instead of treating them like Jon—yelling and making accusations—she approaches them as if they were her eight.

After she orders a pap to his room car for disobeying her, he claims, "she has weird mom powers." She asks another what he had for breakfast and proceeds to lick her hand to wipe off the leftovers.

If only Kate could use this funnygirl prowess more often, we imagine the events of the past year would have played out very differently.

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Keep up with all the latest Gosselin goings on right here.

Kirstie Alley just got some high-profile company.

Chris Rock and Jay Leno proved last night that not even Roman Polanski's recent extradition-fighting arrest is too taboo to joke about.

"This Polanski thing got me, man," Rock said. "What the hell? People are defending Roman Polanski 'cause he made some good movies?"

"Yeah, I don't get it," Leno added, before Rock continued on.

"Are you kidding me? He made good movies 30 years ago, Jay. Come on! Even Johnnie Cochran don't have the nerve to go, 'Well, did you see O.J. play against New England?' "

His incredulity didn't stop there.

"What the? Come on, man, she's 13. Thirteen! I've seen some hot 16-year-olds that look 18, 17[-year-olds] that look 18...Thirteen is 13. Nobody gets away with having sex with a 13-year-old."

He even went so far as to summon the word on everyone's mind—everyone, that is, but the California legal system.

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Halle Berry is not pregnant. Just a little full.

The Oscar winner and flat tummy possessor sat down with Jay Leno last night, doing her bit to keep the buzzmeter high in the already slightly dipping 10 p.m. hour, denying right off the bat that she was expecting a second bundle of joy.

Ever the consummate gentleman host, Leno greeted Berry at the start of the interview by saying how great she looked, thereby providing the perfect opportunity for her to deny Life & Style's "exclusive" and "official" report from earlier this month claiming she and Gabriel Aubry were expecting baby No. 2.

"Thank you for that, Jay, because that must mean all these pregnancy rumors can be put to bed," she said. "I was getting a complex. I was like, I gotta stop with the burgers or something!"

That form-fitting dress would suggest otherwise.

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Like this prime-time faceoff? Be sure to check out what happened when Jennifer Aniston took on Chelsea Handler.

Michael Desmond /The CW

Two new prime timers took a tumble last night. Of course, one had a lot more room to fall than the other.

In just its second week, the CW's new-look Melrose Place fell below 2 million viewers, got schooled by NBC's Biggest Loser premiere on the art of being a chick magnet and blew the lead-in provided by the steady 90210, preliminary Nielsen numbers showed.   

But other than that...

In just his second night on the new job, Jay Leno saw his audience shrink by 7 million viewers, a true, but unfair factoid considering the comic's opening-night crowd was huge. With 10.7 million tuning in, Leno was still the biggest thing going at 10 p.m., even outdrawing the final hour of CBS' Big Brother finale and ABC's Patrick Swayze tribute.

Here's betting the residents of Melrose Place would give up their rent-controlled apartments to have Leno's "problems."

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Rihanna. Jay-Z. Oprah Winfrey. Jerry Seinfeld. Kanye West. Kanye West's latest apology.

Yes, Jay Leno's prime-time premiere was packed. With viewers.

Nearly 18 million tuned in Monday night, estimates showed. And while the great talk-show experiment was slammed by critics for not being experimental enough, it brought NBC a far bigger audience than any scripted show did at 10 p.m. last season.

Tonight, Leno will seek to stave off the sophomore slump with scheduled guests Cameron Diaz, Michael Moore and some guy named Tom Cruise.

Well, not every night can be star-studded…

Look at Jay Leno, already getting the big apologetic celeb of the hour on his first night in prime time.

Musical guest Kanye West decided shortly before showtime to sit down with Jay on the premiere of NBC's The Jay Leno Show and apologize for a third time for his bizarre behavior toward Taylor Swift at last night's MTV Video Music Awards.

"Dealing with the fact that I hurt someone or took anything away, you know, from a talented artist—or from anyone—because I only wanted to help people," West told Leno, who's now conducting his interviews chair-to-chair, rather than from behind a desk.

"My entire life, I've only wanted to do and give something that I felt was right and I immediately knew in this situation that it was wrong," the rapper said.

"It's actually someone's emotions that I stepped on. It was rude, period. I'd like to apologize to her in person."

But it was when Jay asked what Kanye's late mother would have thought about the situation when the 808s & Heartbreak artist almost lost it.

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NBC/Chris Haston

He's got the killer performers, a troupe of funny folks and a start date. What's Jay Leno missing for his new nighttime talker?

Oh, right! Actual people to talk to!

Lucky for him, Jerry Seinfeld has signed on to be the first guest on The Jay Leno Show when it makes its bow on NBC on Sept. 14.

They'll probably gab on about the comedy king reuniting with the cast of Seinfeld for Curb Your Enthusiasm, his upcoming NBC series, The Marriage Ref, and yadda yadda yadda.

The whole evening is shaping up to be quite the yukfest. Wonder what episode two will be like...

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Get a look at all the new shows (coming in just a few weeks!) in our 2009 Fall TV Preview gallery!