As Jay Leno starts his 10th year hosting The Tonight Show, he's still not comfortable with the fame and fortune from TV's top-rated late-night show.

        “I never think that anybody is tuning in to see me,” says Mr. Leno, who will celebrate his anniversary Friday (11:35 p.m., Channels 5, 22). “They're tuning in to see the jokes.”

        The jokes. That's what attracted him to the job when Johnny Carson retired in 1992. It was a comedian's dream job, the nightly pulpit to comment on the day's events minutes after the 11 o'clock news.

Illustration by Gabriel Utasi

        Mr. Leno has made the most of it, delivering nearly 30 minutes of original comedy every weeknight. That's why The Tonight Show with Jay Leno has been the No. 1 late-night host for six years, surviving the challenges of David Letterman, Arsenio Hall, Dennis Miller, Whoopi Goldberg, Damon Wayans, Magic Johnson and Chevy Chase.

        You wouldn't know it by talking to Mr. Leno, 51, still the hardest-working (and most humble) comedian in show business.

        “I found out in the beginning — when it was, "Oh, are they going to fire me? Or replace me (with David Letterman)?' — that even the people who didn't like me, at least they tuned in to hear the jokes,” he says.

        “If you're on every night, and they know you have a lot of jokes, they tune in to see what you have to say.”
       

Monologue expanded

        If Carson was king, then Mr. Leno is the premier jester. He has expanded the opening monologue from six to 11 minutes and peppered it with sight gags. He has developed popular recurring bits like funny headlines; hilarious “Jaywalking” street interviews; and sketches with Tonight Show staffers, celebrities or embarrassingly dim-witted “Jaywalk All-Stars.”

        “(Celebrity) guests can be seen almost everywhere (on TV) now, so consequently we do almost a half-hour comedy show before we bring out the first guest,” says Mr. Leno, who made his Tonight Show debut as a stand-up comic on March 2, 1977.

        “In the old days, you'd have four guests or maybe even five. But now you have two, or maybe three.”

Illustration by Gabriel Utasi

        For nine years, Mr. Leno has left NBC's Burbank studios each night with the same fear: Where will he find 11 more minutes of one-liners? As soon as he gets home, he grabs a stack of jokes from his fax machine and starts putting together the next night's monologue.

        “The hardest part is just finding the comedy,” he says. “We try to do a funny version of the news. We do (jokes about) the news, entertainment and sports. It's like a newscast, but in a funny way.”

        If the news is bad, his job is harder. That's when he pulls out jokes about TV shows and commercials.

        “Look at all the tragedy there is. I might have a bunch of funny airline jokes, but if there is a crash, that (topic) is out for two or three weeks. We don't do gun jokes, because every day there's a shooting somewhere, it seems.”

        He also has made the monologue more visual, dropping in videotaped bits with a Bill Clinton look-alike or inserting himself into a George W. Bush press conference.

MORE LENO

More from from Jay Leno's Tonight Show monologues:     • “President George W. Bush has instituted a new dress policy for the White House. Very strict — no blue jeans allowed in the West Wing. It's very different from the Clinton policy — no pants allowed in the Oval Office.”     • “Sources at ABC News say that Bill Clinton often sneaks back to Washington to be with Hillary. I guess he doesn't want his girlfriends finding out he's seeing his wife. They might get a little annoyed at that.”     • “The whole United States standoff with China is having a ripple effect. You can see it already. In fact, today Connie Chung cut off relations with Maury Povich.”     • “The Chinese today said they're taking a hard stance. In fact, now they're saying they're gonna double the amount of MSG they put in our food.”     • “The post office said today that they're looking for new ways to cut costs. You know, I have an idea. Here's a way to cut costs: Instead of delivering 100 million letters that say, "You may already be a winner' ... Why don't you just deliver one letter that says, "You are a winner.' ”     • “McDonald's is opening their own version of a Starbucks-type coffeehouse. What they're doing is combining McDonald's hot coffee with Starbucks-type prices so you can get burnt twice now.”

        “People always used to say to me, "I listened to your monologue.' Nobody ever said, "I watched it',” he says. “By putting in the things like me talking to Bush, you give people ... a reason to watch — because (I'm) just a guy standing in front of a screen, and not a particularly attractive guy.”
       

Regular gags

        During his five-year stint (1987-92) as Mr. Carson's guest host, he began sharing funny headlines with Tonight Show viewers. Now he receives about 1,700 headlines, typos or humorous newspaper items each week for the Monday night feature, he says.

        The “Jaywalking” interviews have become his most consistently funny bit, an updated variation on the street humor found by Tonight Show originator Steve Allen.

        Mr. Leno gets great laughs by asking ordinary people absurdly ordinary questions. People last week couldn't tell him why the pyramids were built (“For shade?”) or where Egypt was located (“By Mexico?”).

        A few years ago, he found football fans who could name San Francisco 49ers quarterback Joe Montana — but didn't know which state has Helena as its capital city. (“North Dakota?”) In early January, people couldn't name Al Gore's running mate.

        “They're not trick questions. You say, "Who was the first president of the United States?' And they go, "Benjamin Franklin.'

        “It's amazing! My favorite is still the woman who thought that Mount Rushmore was caused by erosion! She explained that it took millions of years of the wind and rain,” he says, laughing at the thought.

        “So not only did it form four presidents, but it formed four of our greatest presidents — and knew to put the beard on Lincoln!”
       

Big-name guests

        Another factor in Mr. Leno's success has been his A-plus guest list — which is easy to assemble when you're the runaway hit in your time slot. He has learned that the biggest names aren't always the best conversationalists, and the worst can be teen-age super models so scared they can't remember their names.

        Character actors “who have been in terrible movies and awful comedies” or people with weird hobbies like collecting potato chips often have great stories to tell, he says.

        “We used to do authors. In the old days, you could do ... interesting and intelligent guests — but now everything is driven by ratings,” he says.

        Sometimes he books a guest himself, reaching out to a troubled star like Friends' Matthew Perry after drug rehab, and asking if he wants “to come on and talk about it.” He promises to be fair, friendly and funny.

        “I'm not Tom Brokaw. I'm not Barbara Walters,” he says. “They come on my show to test the waters a little bit. I just try to make it a comfortable situation.”

        His personal favorites have been political giants such as Bob Dole, Colin Powell, John F. Kennedy Jr. and former president Jimmy Carter.

        “As someone who flunked civics, to have a president sitting next to you is amazing,” he says.

        He flunked civics? Really? So he's no better than his “Jaywalking” dolts?

        “No,” he confesses, “but I was never a very good student. I'm dyslexic, so I would get everything backwards. I was a terrible student. If you watch the monologue, you see me all the time screw it up, because I turn it around.”

        As if he doesn't have enough to do, Mr. Leno still performs about 100 comedy concerts a year. Sometimes he flies to Las Vegas after his 5:30 p.m. TV taping to do a couple of shows.

        “On TV, people tell you how funny you are, but you don't hear it,” says. The thrill of working clubs is hearing the audience roar at his jokes; the thrill of TV is entertaining the whole country at once.

        “In the old days, I would do the same act to different audiences. Now I can do a different act to the same audience,” he says. “Instead of having to fly to each city, I go to the same place every day, and I get to go home.”

        Unlike his predecessor, Mr. Leno has no interest in hiring guest hosts so he can take long vacations. His absence would just mean more work for his staffers, who would have to teach the routine to someone new.

        “My life is a vacation! If I go to Vegas, they give me the most beautiful room. And how long do I work — two or three hours a night?” says Mr. Leno, who appears 48 weeks a year on NBC.

        “It's the best life in the world: People pay you to go to vacation spots! So for me to pay to sit in a hotel room, that's stupid. Why don't I just tell a few jokes and get it for free?”
       

Living a normal life

        Mr. Leno, who signed a contract extension in January through 2005, still lives off the money he makes on the road.

        “I have never touched a dollar of my Tonight Show money. I live on the money I make as a comedian. All that other money goes in the bank,” says Mr. Leno, whose parents lived through the Great Depression of the 1930s.

        “The real trick to this,” he says, “is having show business money, but leading a normal life.”

        He recalls the words of his mother, who admonished him as a kid to “never draw attention to yourself,” he says. That's why he's not the star of the show.

        “It says The Tonight Show WITH Jay Leno,” he says. “My mom would say: "You're not going to say: "The Tonight Show starring Jay Leno?' That sounds so pretentious.' So I just put my head down and plow ahead.”

        All the way to the top.
       

        Contact John Kiesewetter at 768-8519; fax: 768-8330; E-mail: jkiesewetter@enquirer.com; Cincinnati.com keyword: Kiesewetter
       
       

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