SARATOGA SPRINGS — Jay Leno was recently honored with the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. It was 25 years ago that we brought Jay to the Saratoga Springs City Center to perform at The HUMOR Project’s international conference on “The Positive Power of Humor and Creativity.” It was great to have Jay visit our city, renowned for Heath-History-Horses-Humor. Before the conference, I had the good fortune to interview Jay in the unlikeliest of places— the women’s locker room at American University in Washington, D.C. (his makeshift “dressing room”).
Jay follows in the funny footsteps of laughter luminaries like Bill Cosby, Jonathan Winters, Lily Tomlin, Steve Martin, Ellen DeGeneres, Billy Crystal, Carl Reiner, Tina Fey, Whoopi Goldberg and Bob Newhart as a recipient of this award. This year's show will air nationally on PBS on Sunday, Nov. 23.
In the meantime, here are some excerpts from the interview I did with Jay that appeared in our Laughing Matters print magazine. Jay shared some wit and wisdom as he walked down Mirthful Memory Lane:
“The comedy I do is primarily observational. Television, radio, print ads, things people are familiar with generally makes for the best comedy. Or growing up, that type of thing. The thing that annoys me most is cruel humor. When you go out with a joke where the whole laugh is dependent on putting someone down, you're cheating. I deal with truisms. If it's funny, people laugh. It has to have enough truth in it to be real. I just travel the country and identify the absurd.
“My mother worries because of the business I’m in... So I told her, “Look, Sylvester Stallone got $12 million for working only ten weeks." She says, "Sure, but what's he gonna do the rest of the year?”
“You draw so much from your childhood. So much of comedy is finding things people thought they forgot about that you remind them of. My Dad always fills out the warranty card. He buys a pen, fills out the little card and mails it in. My Dad saves every receipt. This is a true story: 1968, I’m in high school. My Dad buys a brand new toilet seat with a 20-year guarantee. I went home last July. I go into the bathroom and sit on the john. “Crack!” The seat cracks. When I lifted it up, it’s a rotted-out toilet seat. I said, “Dad, the toilet seat’s busted. Come on, I’ll buy you a new one.”
“The seat’s all right,” he proclaims. “We got a 20-year guarantee on that thing.” He comes out with this receipt; it looks like the Magna Carta. This thing is so old. It’s written in longhand, “In the year of our Lord, Nineteen hundred and sixty-eight, and the Lord doth proclaim….” He goes, “You get the toilet seat. We’ll take it uptown.” I protested, “Dad, I‘m not taking this smelly toilet seat uptown.”
“We ended up going to the store; the guy he bought it from is dead. He’s been dead for about 15 years. His son is 57 years old. My Dad shows him, “I got this guarantee.” My Dad was right. The guy gave him another toilet seat. This one is now good for another 20 years. This is my inheritance.
When I was a teenager, I saved enough money for a car, but I had to borrow $600 from my Dad for insurance. When he asked how I was going to pay him back, I said, "Well, Dad, when I smash up the car, I'll pay you out of the insurance money."
“This is absolutely true. I was doing a bunch of dates and I was in Ohio (before becoming the permanent host of The Tonight Show following Johnny Carson). I'm on the 5:30 newscast with this anchor and she says, "Mr. Leno, I'm very sorry. I'm just not familiar with your work. Tell me about yourself." I said, "Well, I’m on The Tonight Show a lot." The news comes on, and I'm sitting right next to her. This is exactly what she says: "We're talking with Jay Leno. Jay, who claims to have appeared on The Tonight Show...” Like I made it up…
In third grade, my teacher said that in Robin Hood's time, people were killed by being boiled in oil. I raised my hand and said, "But they couldn't boil Tuck-- he was a friar!" In fifth grade, my report card said, "If Jay spent as much time studying as he does trying to be a comedian, he'd be a big star."
You'll see on PBS on Nov. 23 that Jay has had many claims to funny fame... and that he is a big star.
Dr. Joel Goodman is the Founder and Director of The HUMOR Project, Inc. Visit their Web site at www.HumorProject.com.
