Jay Leno made the audacious claim that “Joe Rogan is the new Johnny Carson” in a new interview with Deadline.
“I mean, podcasts really are the new talk shows,” Leno said in response to a question about how technology has changed media. “Joe Rogan is the new Johnny Carson. Yeah, Joe talks to everybody about everything. There’s no FCC to step in and say what you say and can’t say, so you really do get an unfiltered idea of what everybody thinks. So yeah, I mean, to me, that’s what’s also changed late-night.”
He added, “It’s not that people are better or worse, it’s the fact that the whole medium has changed. The idea that you have to turn the TV on 11:30 p.m. to hear what was being said, like appointment television, that sounds ridiculous now.”
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Rogan is a charged political figure, and Leno’s opinion might be surprising if you remember his complaints from last year that modern late-night hosts “alienate” half their audience. The 76-year-old now says his comments were taken out of context.
“One of the questions the interviewer, David Trulio, asked me was something like, ‘How do you think you and Johnny handled politics?’ Well, we tried to make fun of both sides equally,” he explained. “I said, ‘I don’t think anyone wants to hear a lecture. Why go for just half an audience?’ He wanted me to say that Republicans laugh at each other more than Democrats. I’m not sure I agreed.
“Anyway, this was all while Colbert still had a job at CBS. Two weeks later, Colbert gets fired. Interview comes out. Soon after, I picked up the paper, and they have a picture of me making an angry face and saying late-night hosts are doing it wrong. I didn’t say that. I didn’t.”
According to Leno, “I think they all do a good job. Funny is funny. All the rest, it’s just the times we live in, that’s all.”
Up next, Leno will be among the comedians leading Bill Maher’s Mark Twain Prize ceremony on June 28th.