Leno Can’t Win for Winning

Bookstore shelves are lined with self-help volumes about women who love the wrong kind of men, finding themselves drawn to bad boys who mistreat, neglect or simply ignore them.

When it comes to late-night television, the press appears to have developed a similar condition.

Today marks the 10th anniversary of Johnny Carson’s final appearance on “The Tonight Show,” the date when the late-night king bade America a “very heartfelt goodnight” before triumphantly riding into the sunset--literally, in this case, since his home is in Malibu.

Commemoration of this event, however, has provided many in the media an occasion not just to laud Carson’s three-decade reign but also to heap ridicule on successor Jay Leno as a pretender to the throne while exalting David Letterman, ratings notwithstanding, as late night’s true heir apparent.

Now, it’s perfectly understandable that someone would prefer Letterman to Leno, or Carson to Leno, or Cartoon Network’s Space Ghost to Leno as a matter of personal taste. What’s puzzling is why Leno provokes such hostility--enduring barbs from various critics, among them a surprisingly tart appraisal from an Associated Press columnist not generally known for wielding a poison pen, who recently called “Tonight” “a wretched one-note nightly waste of time” and found it “galling” that anybody tunes in.

The din has been enough to make you wonder if the motivation goes deeper than the prevailing wisdom in critical circles that his show is less inventive than Letterman’s and his interviews feel copiously scripted.

What reason could there be beyond Leno’s prominent jaw? For one thing, Letterman, like Carson, is notoriously press-shy, having shunned interviews for the last several years. Yet the less Letterman talks, the more critics love him, whereas Leno is vilified not just because he provides a more vanilla-flavored show--Carson actually did as well in his own way--but because he’s not above campaigning for the audience’s affection.

Carson’s own legend, meanwhile, has clearly grown because he had the audacity to walk away from the limelight without looking back--a phenomenon I mentioned in March, admitting that I have unsuccessfully requested an interview with Carson every year since the fifth anniversary of his departure. Shortly thereafter, he dropped me a very polite note, promising that his answer would again be “No” when I made the obligatory call next year. Oddly enough, I took it as completely charming, even after he broke his silence, albeit to a limited degree, in an Esquire magazine piece about him.

Chalk that reaction up in part to human nature. Critics and reporters spend their day being poked, prodded and courted. No wonder those who can do without our patronage often fascinate us most.

That said, the critical brickbats directed at Leno from some quarters have always seemed disproportionate to whatever his perceived misdemeanors against comedy may be.

There is an assumption, for example, that by modulating his act to suit the broadest audience, Leno panders to a lower (some would say lowest) common denominator. Notably, network executives have no quarrel with this, so long as it is reflected among families that choose to let Nielsen Media Research intrude into their homes--a jury that continues to find in Leno’s favor.

Indeed, a review of preliminary results for the May ratings sweeps, which officially conclude tonight, indicates Letterman’s show has made no appreciable inroads into Leno’s sizable ratings advantage despite CBS’ pledge to throw additional promotional weight behind Letterman as part of his recent contract renewal. Late-night ratings for all three networks (including ABC’s “Nightline” and “Politically Incorrect With Bill Maher”) are virtually unchanged versus May 2001, reflecting how glacial movement is on that front.

A less obvious point is that while Leno gets painted as a sellout, little is said about others who pander in different ways. No one, for example, speaks much about Howard Stern shamelessly shilling for products on his radio show, working commercials for Heineken, corrective surgery or Showtime series he wouldn’t be caught dead watching into banter with his regular cast of idiots. Sponsors pay a huge premium for that privilege, yet Stern--the same guy, by the way, who provides weekly plugs for a CBS sister property, “Survivor”--is allowed to position himself as a cutting-edge renegade.

Similarly, Letterman is hailed for his creative genius, yet few have questioned the host for being so thin-skinned about Leno beating him in the ratings as well as his reluctance, as expressed through various surrogates, to take any responsibility for that situation, instead blaming the network.

Last time I looked, Woody Allen (another tortured comic genius) doesn’t publicly lament that his films make less money than “Spider-Man” or blame the studio for a lack of advertising. Rather, Allen acknowledges that his act appeals to a relatively small swath of the public, a place one would think--or hope--that Letterman could reach. After all, why not simply accept that Leno is more popular and enjoy his own success, from a $30-million-plus annual salary to all the critical plaudits showered on him, as reward enough?

To his credit, Leno at least pays lip service to this philosophy. Asked in 1999 how he felt about being left off Entertainment Weekly’s list of the 50 funniest people (Letterman came in at No. 18), he said regarding the media skew toward Letterman, “It’s like your wife’s family. It’d be nice if they like you, but it’s not the end of the world.”

As for Letterman and his media admirers, as someone who has played hide-and-seek with Carson these last few years, I can understand coveting what is just beyond your grasp. And while shedding that impulse would probably make us all more contented, that remains a trick even the most talented of stupid humans can’t seem to master.

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Brian Lowry’s column appears Wednesdays. He can be reached at brian.lowry@latimes.com.