David Letterman skewers NBC, Jay Leno leaving ‘The Tonight Show’

Well, it did not take very long at all for David Letterman to decide to have some more fun at the expense of NBC and “The Tonight Show.” Any longtime fan of late-night television remembers how he was famously passed over for the gig in favor of Jay Leno, and that has slowly ate away at Dave over the years; in addition to that, Letterman is getting another chance to poke fun at Jay’s “retirement” after the Conan O’Brien debacle a few years ago.

So when the news came out Wednesday that Jimmy Fallon will in fact take over the reigns of “The Tonight Show” beginning in the spring of next year, it’s understandable that Dave would have quite a bit to say. He unveiled a Top 10 list of the “Things We’ll Miss About Jay Leno” (which we will have some video footage of later in the day), and he also fired off a series of pretty epic one-liners about the fact that so many of us have been in this place before with Jay. Our favorite one? Check out the following:

“It seems like we just went through this.  Didn’t we just go through this? Jay Leno now is being replaced, and this is the second time this has happened.  I mean, it’s crazy.  He’s being replaced by a younger late night talk show host – what could possibly go wrong?  Honestly.  They had pretty good luck with this in the past.”

So what does this news of Leno’s imminent departure mean for Letterman on “The Late Show”? We personally expect CBS to try to offer Dave some sort of extension for him to stay on the show beyond 2014, if for no other reason than that they will want to ensure that he has his moment in the sun before saying goodbye, and also so that they can capitalize on ratings in the event that the Fallon-led “Tonight Show” becomes a disappointment. (He is untested, after all, in this timeslot.)

If you want to see what Leno and Fallon had to say in their initial statements about the change-over, be sure to check out the story over at the link here.

Photo: CBS