The final Tonight Show with Jay Leno aired on Friday, and while I’ve made no pretense about my animosity towards Leno’s distressingly popular averageness in the past, I made it a point to tune in to witness the rare cultural event of a 17-year show tenure coming to a close, and to acknowledge, if not admire, Leno’s mystifying ability to crush Letterman in the ratings night after night for most of the past decade.
The episode was fine — Conan O’Brien was charming and funny as always, the banter between him and Leno appeared genuine and free of passive aggressiveness, the 38-minute Jay Walking montage could have been about 90% shorter, and James Taylor’s voice is still amazing — but the very final segment was more bewildering than I could’ve ever possibly expected. Leno ended his goodbyes by talking about his “legacy” as Tonight Show host, and ultimately declared that he wants people to remember the amount of couples that met working on his show, then unveiled onstage the 60+ children born to Tonight Show employees during his tenure (the mark of any great comedian).
The show then ended with this jaw-dropping final shot of Leno lying across the floor like a Stanley Cup winning goalie, smiling creepily while surrounded by a huge group of random, disinterested children:
Jay Leno’s self-professed legacy: lying across a bunch of children creepily. Like a politician with image problems or a movie star coming off a DUI arrest, both in need of an “aww children!” automatic boost. Surely, Conan’s first show can’t come soon enough.
After the jump, two more creepy Leno children pics:
