Jay Leno may be smarting over the recent cuts that saw around 20 staffers lose their jobs on The Tonight Show but all the while the cameras are rolling, he seems to be in good humour about the bad news. He still has a job, after all. even if he did have to take a reported $5 million pay-cut, as E! News reports. On last night's episode of The Tonight Show (August 21, 2012), Leno made his usual introduction by joking "Welcome to The Tonight Show, or, as we call it, Survivor: Comcast."
The jokes didn't stop there, though, as Leno continued "NBC now stands for Nothing But Cutbacks, as you may have heard" and the chat show host carried on elbowing Nbc in the ribs by announcing that the entirety of last night's script was written by "illegals" and then quipping that it wasn't just his show affected by the tightening of Nbc's purse strings: "It's not just us," he said. "They're cutting budgets all across Nbc. Like this morning, on the Today show, Kathy Lee and Hoda were drinking Keystone Light. That's how bad it was. Knocking those back."
One thing that Jay did not joke about though, was the additional bad news that his rival show, Jimmy Kimmel Live will be nibbling away at his own viewer ratings when it moves to an 11:35pm slot, as of January 8, 2012. We guess there are some things that even Leno can't manage to crack a smile over.