My First Joke - Thanks Leno!

When I was working in my home office the other day, I looked up and saw it hanging on the wall.  It always makes me smile.  It’s just a small frame with a check stub under the glass.  It’s not that unusual because lots of people frame things that are important to them: college degrees,  GED‘s, even completion certificates from transmission schools.  Like them, this check stub is important to me.  The amount is not significant, but the note on the left-hand side is. It says, “Writers  Services -Comedy Material Jay Leno”.  This little piece of paper is the first hard evidence that proves to everyone (including the IRS, who keeps asking about my office deduction) I am a professional comedy writer. 

Joke writing was a natural by-product of me doing stand-up. For about 18 months after my first open mic night,  I had been honing my writing and delivery skills at the Comedy Club in Birmingham Alabama. I slurped up information about comedy the way an anteater sucks up ants.  I found a couple of books on writing which became  invaluable resources, because they taught me joke structure and routining.  I even began to write topical one-liners for a morning radio team who needed the help. To give you an idea how long ago this was, they paid me in cassette tapes. Nothing like schlepping a few jokes for the new Journey release. 

About this time, I noticed an interesting cover on Rolling Stone magazine. It had a joint photo of David Letterman and Jay Leno.  I don’t think you’ll see that happening today without some serious photo shopping. What I remember about the article was the description of Jay - a decent, blue collar kind of guy, they said. In fact, he responds to every piece of fan mail. An idea germinated.  What if I sent Leno some of my topical jokes and asked him to critique them? That would be so cool to have my own one liners graded by The Man. 

I got out a legal pad and hand wrote a letter to Jay,  one comedian to another. Forget that he was guest hosting the Tonight Show at the time, and I was one step beyond knock-knock jokes. I made every effort to suck up to him (which I admitted in the letter), and then asked the favor.  I enclosed about four pages of my comedic gems along with a self-addressed stamped envelope. Hopefully, the future king of late night would write some suggestions in the margin and send them back to me. Considering he got thousands of letters each week,  I knew I wasn’t going to hear from him for a while. So I dropped the package in the mail, and forgot about it. 

Two weeks later, I was working in my downtown office when the phone rang. 

It was my wife, who immediately and pointedly said, “I need to know something.  Have you sent some kind of letter to Jay Leno?” 

My heart jumped, but I stayed cool. “Why are you asking me that?”

“Because I think I might’ve just made a fool out of myself.”  

I wisely let that hanging curveball go right by me. My experience as a husband had finally paid off. 

Instead, I asked innocently, “What could you possibly mean?” 

“Well, I just got a weird phone call from someone saying they were Jay Leno. He wanted you to sign a writing contract. It was really a pretty lame impersonation, so I thought it was one of your idiot friends playing a joke on you.”

Panic flooded me. “No, no, no! Did you hang up? Did you get a name? Did you get a number?”  I was yelling like George Costanza on a Seinfeld episode. “Vandelay  Industries!  Vandelay Industries!”

Carol tersely responded, “Well, whoever it was gave me a phone number,  but I’ll bet it’s one of those sex lines.”

“ I’ll be the judge of that!” I yelled.   “Just give it to me!”

It turns out it was Jay.  He really does read his letters. More importantly, he looked over my jokes and liked the stuff I submitted!   So he gave me his manager’s contact information. When I called her, I got a very brief primer on how to submit material, and how I would be paid.  It was a hand signed check from Jay himself.  I signed an independent work agreement, meaning he only paid  me for the jokes he used, making it the ultimate in free enterprise.  And no healthcare. Once Leno buys a joke, it’s his to use - in the monologue, or in his nightclub act.  

Since this was before he took over the Tonight Show on a full time basis,  I began to watch Jay every Monday night, looking for style, tendencies, and topics. Finally, I began writing about 5 to 7 jokes a week.  By the end of his run on the show, my submissions increased to about 50-60. Some nights the material flowed so freely that my fingers couldn’t keep up with my thoughts. Other nights, it was all I could do to squeeze out a half dozen lame jokes to fax him. 

 Finally, after about three weeks of writing, I thought I heard something that sounded like one of my jokes. I began watching the mailbox like a sumo wrestler watches a buffet line.   Within a few days, I received a letter with a Los Angeles return address. Inside was a light blue check personally autographed by Mr. Jay Leno. At last, I was officially a professional comedy writer!  That began our long association together.  

The joke?  Oh yeah, here it is:

“Scientists are now saying that drinking cow’s milk can be hazardous to your health.   I’ll tell you what’s hazardous to your health. Having your mom catch you in front of the refrigerator drinking milk out of the carton. ”

I know, I know. Any one of you could’ve written it. That’s probably true, but I’m the one who put it on paper. And because of a fan letter, and an open minded late night host, I got a check for it. 

Please like and share!  

#comedywriting

#thetonightshow

#JayLeno

#neverthoughtthiswouldhappen