by In the second quarter of the Super Bowl, CBS broadcast an ad for its late-night chat show, Late Show with David Letterman. Letterman and Oprah had appeared together in a Super Bowl spot before, but this time, Jay Leno crashed the party. In his denim shirt. And allowed Letterman to impersonate him. In an ad for Letterman's show. Yes, that really did happen. Leno really must love knowing that NBC cannot fire him without paying him a gabillion dollars, because why else would he agree to this ad for his competition. Wow. Just wow. Watch it again right now!
UPDATED: The New York Times' Bill Carter, who is embedded in the late-night camps because he is writing a follow-up book to The Late Shift (how convenient), has Letterman's executive producer Rob Burnett dish with full details of how CBS asked Letterman to top his 2007 Super Bowl spot with Oprah, and how Leno got NBC's permission to fly to NYC on Tuesday (when the network pre-empted his show) and sneak in with Oprah during Letterman's live taping. Sounds like a win-win for both Leno and Letterman.
Not only his competition, but aren’t the two not very civil as people?
I am a Letterman fan, but this was a brilliant public
relations move by Jay Leno. By making fun of himself (and the recent “Tonight Show” broohaha), Leno is making himself look less like the bad guy. I think
the NBC executives would actually approve Leno’s participation in the ad (even though it is intended by CBS to promote Letterman’s show).
The New York Times just posted an article explaining how the Letterman-Leno Super Bowl commercial came together (very interesting):
https://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/how-the-letterman-oprah-leno-super-bowl-ad-came-together/