‘Tonight Show’ Goes On Without Brogan

In his nine years at “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” Jim Brogan helped craft a few thousand monologues and probably helped oversee as many as 45,000 jokes--work that earned him the job title of “vice president in charge of monologues.”

That tenure ended quietly last week, when Brogan left the show to pursue other projects. NBC made no announcement about the departure, but Brogan’s influence as Leno’s unseen advisor was familiar to those in comedy circles.

“He was a little sad but he’s really been encouraging me to do my own thing,” Brogan said of Leno. “We talked about it last week and I said, ‘You’ve got your dream job. I’ve got a great job and I’ll always be grateful and thankful for it, but I want to do other things.’ ”

Brogan’s decision to leave NBC was made easier by the salary freezes ongoing at “The Tonight Show,” which is one of the most profitable shows produced by the General Electric-owned network. Brogan earned about $600,000 a year on a two-year contract that was up for renewal.

“Had they thrown a lot of money at me, I might have been tempted to go, ‘Whoa, that’s great money,”’ Brogan said, before adding dryly of G.E.: “Evidently, if they paid one penny more, they’d go under.”

But Brogan--a good-natured and notoriously frugal person who favors jeans and sneakers and still drives a Toyota Tercel--also said money wasn’t the overriding factor in his decision.

Brogan’s departure marks the end of a working relationship with Leno that began in 1987, when the comedian became a permanent “Tonight Show” guest host, and has continued throughout Leno’s reign as successor to Johnny Carson, during which “The Tonight Show” has emerged as late-night TV’s top-rated show, consistently beating its chief rival, CBS’ “The Late Show with David Letterman.” Together, Leno and Brogan, who met as comics in New York in the 1970s, worked on the centerpiece of the show--Leno’s headline-riffing monologue. Sunday through Thursday nights, the pair convened at Leno’s Beverly Hills house and worked into the early-morning hours, whittling down the hundreds of jokes faxed in by “Tonight Show” writers to the 20 to 30 Leno tells in a typical monologue.

In a 1998 Times profile of Brogan, Leno was asked what he’d do if Brogan left the show. “Well, the one thing about these shows is they go on,” he said. “If Jimmy had a stroke, we wouldn’t go off the air. But I would probably go see him in the hospital and then I’d say, ‘OK, one wink for a good joke and two winks for a bad.’ ”

“I consider him an equal,” Leno said this week.

Brogan, who doesn’t use profanity in his own stage act, served as Leno’s sounding board and editor on a monologue that by definition straddles what is considered acceptable mainstream humor.

“I’m probably a little more conservative than Jay in my tastes,” Brogan said. Referring to Jack Coen, the “Tonight Show” writer and comic who will assume his position as monologue advisor, Brogan said: “It’s possible that Jack will have a different approach. But Jay always has the ultimate say. He was the one who lived or died with that joke.”

Prior to working on “The Tonight Show,” Brogan, who still performs stand-up around town several times a week, was a comedian peer of top comics Leno and Jerry Seinfeld. In 1979, Brogan starred in the short-lived ABC sitcom “Out of the Blue,” in which he played an angel living with an extended family in Chicago.

Years later, when Leno became a permanent guest host of “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson,” the comic would ask Brogan to help hash out his monologues, as Brogan had done for Seinfeld when the comedian made his first “Tonight Show” appearance in 1981.

“When Jay first took over the show, I said, ‘Oh, I’ll help you out for six months, and it turned into nine years of doing it,” said Brogan, who says he’ll still perform Sunday nights at the Comedy and Magic Club in Hermosa Beach, when Leno headlines.

Brogan, 52 (“56 Canadian”), said he’s now looking to finance a feature script he’s written called “I Was a Teenage Freshman.” He’s also going to pitch a TV pilot he and comedian Pat Hazell are developing called “Toys Were Us.”

“It’s probably time that he pursue these projects,” Leno said, adding that the salary freezes at “The Tonight Show” helped influence the situation.

Brogan, for his part, recalled advice he’d once gotten from Seinfeld’s father. “Some people can be in business for 10 years and get 10 years of experience. Other people are in business 10 years and get one year of experience 10 times.”

*

Times staff writer Roy Rivenburg contributed to this article.