Late-night host and stand-up comic Jay Leno has had enough of partisan politics. He thinks you have too. So much so the veteran entertainer has dropped the topic from his sets – and ticket sales have spiked accordingly.
Leno told NBC’s Today anchor Hoda Kotb how his ticket sales have gone up following the decision because he’s not alienating a third of his audience with a finger-waving political lecture.
I’m on the road a lot. I just took politics out of it, completely. I know ticket sales are up 20, 30 percent, just because nobody wants to be lectured.
As noted by the NY Post, the erstwhile host of NBC’s The Tonight Show said comics can play more political jokes on their shows, but when touring to other parts of the country — like red states — they have to tone it down out of respect for those who have paid for their entry and expect to be entertained accordingly.
In the Today segment, first noticed by NewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck, Leno further added, “When you’re on TV and you can play directly to your audience and there’s a laugh track. When you go to Indiana or Kentucky or any other place in the country, you’re always going to have a third of the people who don’t agree with you politically. So why even go there?”
When Kotb followed up by saying it seems trickier to do comedy in the current political climate, Leno disagreed with her, noting his craft has always had challenges and maintaining he can still express political generalities when pushed on the subject in an interview.
“I don’t think it’s any trickier than any other [time]… No. You know, we’ve always had tough times,” Leno said. “It’s not that it’s better now … But stuff that used to be the law is now against the law […] And that’s great.”
Asked if he seems hopeful about the future of comedy, the 75-year-old said yes, acknowledging it is always evolving to meet the demands of audiences – and that is exactly what he is doing by dropping partisan politics and just concentrating on making people laugh.
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