Last night, Jay Leno appeared on his first late night show since the news of the layoffs hit the web. The comedian/talk show host wasted no time to address NBC and Comcast in his monologue segment. “Welcome to The Tonight Show, or as Comcast calls us, The Expendables!” he said. “As you may have heard, our parent company has downsized The Tonight Show. And we’ve consistently been No. 1 in the ratings. If you know anything about our network, that kind of thing is frowned upon.”
Leno continued by taking a swipe at presidential candidate Mitt Romney saying, “I have more bad news: turns out we’ve been taken over by Bain Capital!” The comedian also added a scene reference from the hit movie Godfather, mixed in with the NBC logo saying, “I knew something was going on. Friday morning I woke up and there was a peacock head in my bed.”
Last Friday, NBC laid off between 20 and 25 people and many senior staffers had to agree to pay cuts. Leno himself also took a pay reduction to save other peoples’ jobs. His current salary is reportedly between $25 million and $30 million a year and the host volunteered to have his pay cut to $20 million.
Video of the timely jokes below:
