“The Tonight Show’s” Jay Leno may have thought a few jokes would pacify the recent blow of layoffs to his show, as he opened his monologue on Monday night with a few wisecracks about the pink slips that were handed out on Friday. “Welcome to ‘The Tonight Show’ – or as Comcast calls us, ‘The Expendables!’” the talk show host said. “As you may have heard, our parent company has downsized ‘The Tonight Show.’ We’ve consistently been No. 1 in the ratings, and if you know anything about our network, that kind of thing is frowned upon…”
Although the audience enjoyed the quibbles, Leno was likely feeling a little less light-hearted. A source told CNN on Saturday that between 20 to 25 employees of “The Tonight Show” were let go, and that Leno opted for “a substantial pay cut” in order to save his staff from further cuts. Leno continued his joking rant, kidding that the layoffs weren’t even the half of it. “I have more bad news,” Leno told his studio audience. “It turns out we’ve been taken over by Bain Capital. I knew something was going on. Friday morning I woke up and there was a peacock head in my bed. But the good news – it’s still free to get into ‘The Tonight Show.’ The bad news is it’s a hundred bucks to get out.”
