I hate Jay Leno so much.

Like most hatreds, my feelings for Leno are irrational. I mean, yes, he pretty much empirically sucks, but his brand of humor is so resolutely innocuous that hating him is totally overboard — it’s like hating ice cubes or milk. Leno’s style of entertainment is the kind of thing that you either chuckle at or ignore; if it doesn’t float your boat, you say “I don’t care for it,” not “I hate that motherfucker,” or “this date is over,” which is what I would shout in the ’90s if the girl I was out with told me she was a fan. Watching Leno continually trounce the funnier, more insightful Letterman in the ratings all those years only amplified my black loathing, to the point where I’m pretty sure I squealed like a third-grade girl when I read NBC’s (waaaay premature) announcement that Conan O’Brien would be taking over The Tonight Show this year.

And then, like a hug that turns into a punch in the nuts, the network went and gave Leno their 10 PM slot, five awful nights a week, for the typically creatively named The Jay Leno Show. Because the Popdose TV-critic slot is like the Spinal Tap drummer’s chair, and we don’t have anyone else who can cover the fall debuts, I was left wincing in pain as I picked up the remote and turned away from a very good fourth quarter of Monday Night Football and toward my hammy televised nemesis. (more…)