Jay Leno

Finally after being bound and gagged by the confines of an NBC contract, Coco will be able to remove that ball gag that Jeff Zucker finds so fetching and speak his mind.

He'll be sitting down with '60 Minutes'' Steve Kroft this Sunday for an exclusive interview on everything that's happened since he gave 'The Tonight Show' back to Jay Leno, just a day shy of his interview contract deadline.

This isn't intended to question Kroft's journalistic ability or choice of questions, but he has a position that most TV fans would sacrifice a live goat to have. Ever since the "s" hit the "f" during NBC's "Late Night-Gate," people have been dying to ask Coco questions that could cost him money, legal fees and quite possibly a finger if he answered them before his contract expired. Here are the questions that inquiring minds want to know.

Here's tonight's TV lineup (all times Eastern). All shows mentioned are new, unless otherwise noted.

8:00 to 9:00
ABC: 'Dancing With the Stars' -- Two hours
CBS: 'How I Met Your Mother' and 'Rules of Engagement'
The CW: 'Life Unexpected'
FOX: 'House' -- Finally!
BBC America: 'Top Gear'
Cartoon Network: 'Adventure Time With Finn & Jake'
Nick: 'Glen Martin, DDS'
TLC: 'Little People, Big World' -- Two 30-minute episodes

9:00 to 10:00
CBS: 'Two and a Half Men' and 'The Big Bang Theory'
The CW: 'Gossip Girl'
FOX: '24'
NBC: 'Trauma'
A&E: 'Intervention'
Cartoon Network: '6TEEN'
TLC: 'Ultimate Cake Off'
TruTV: 'Operation Repo' (starts at 9:30)

10:00 to 11:00
ABC: 'Castle'
CBS: 'CSI: Miami'
A&E: 'Runaway Squad' -- Two 30-minute episodes
FX: 'Damages'
MTV: 'True Life'
Oxygen: 'Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood'
Showtime: 'Nurse Jackie' and 'United States of Tara'
TNT: 'Saving Grace'
Travel: 'Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations'

Check your local TV listings for more information. After the jump, the late night talk shows.

We at TV Squad have been accused of having an bias against Jay Leno. That might be true; after all, our writers are free to post their opinions on any and all news stories, and my guess is that most of our staff are not big Leno fans (in fact, Bob has said many, many, many times how much he dislikes Jay).

But, one thing we've never denied is that the man can get an audience at 11:35. And, if anyone was fretting that Leno's audience wouldn't follow him back to 'The Tonight Show,' you needn't have worried.

According to Media Life Magazine (via TVWeek), Leno averaged 4.2 million viewers per night last week. Yes, that's one million viewers less than he had a year ago, but it's still a million more than Letterman, whose 'Late Show' has lost about 900,000 viewers since Leno came back. And Leno's pulling almost 1.5 million more viewers than Conan did.

So, why did most of the viewers come back so soon? Four reasons come to mind:

About a year ago, Jay Leno traveled to Michigan to do a show for unemployed auto workers. It got him some good PR, and I'm sure the folks in attendance enjoyed themselves. It was a pretty positive experience all around. Since then, very little has gone right for Leno PR-wise, and now, a year later, he's even screwing things up in the Wolverine State.

In March of '09, Jaws Jumbo Burgers, a burger joint in Farmington Hills, Michigan, made a "Thank You Jay Leno" burger as a way to thank the late night host for doing those free shows. They offered Leno an all-expense-paid trip back to Michigan to try the burger out, but they never heard back from him.

They sent him emails, hand delivered packages, took out an ad in a newspaper; still nothing. They even started a blog,documenting the process of trying to get Jay to acknowledge them, but it was still radio silence. So now Jaws Jumbo Burgers is about to defect to Team CoCo.

Joy Behar from CNN's sister station HLN stopped backstage at the "what's old is new again" version of 'The Tonight Show with Jay Leno' and managed to snag an interview with Jay. Jay ended up stating how both he and Conan got screwed by the situation at NBC with 'The Tonight Show.' While there is a great deal of truth to his words, Jay is selectively editing history by leaving out his responsibility regarding Conan's tumultuous departure. Here's the video:

Does NBC have something to worry about now that Leno is back in the 'Tonight Show' chair or is this just a case of settling the new guy in ... uh, again?

Dave Letterman's 'Late Show' scored a 1.3 in the demo ratings while Jay Leno's 'Tonight Show' scored a 1.1 on Monday.

What's to blame? It's the lead-in's fault. CBS had the highest prime time lead-in while NBC finished a distant fourth or as Conan O'Brien would call it, "payback."

Can Leno pull things around or is this a sign of things to come?

Do you find yourself not getting enough done in your daily life? Is your to-do list a sticky mess of unfinished tasks and procrastination? It's not your fault. It's Jay Leno's fault.

Buzzfeed has compiled an informative list of the things you should be doing instead of watching Leno's triumphant (not really) return to 'The Tonight Show' slot.

Surprisingly, regaining your hope that there is a just and true God who watches over us all, punishes the wicked and rewards the good didn't make the cut. Not that I'm bitter or anything.

It's like he never left, isn't it?

Jay Leno returned to 'The Tonight Show' last night, and he pretty much settled back into the groove right away. Of course, there really wasn't much groove to "settle back into" since the 10PM 'Jay Leno Show' was 'Tonight 2.0,' a carbon copy of the 11:35 show with just a time change (oh, and no desk).

He still did his long monologue, he still bantered with Kevin, he still interviewed guests. It's not like he was going to drastically change anything. Jay was Jay and he did was he always does.

What didn't he do? Well, he didn't acknowledge Conan O'Brien at all. I guess that's no surprise since he didn't acknowledge Johnny Carson on his first show back in 1992. But you would think that he would have said something about Conan since it was the major TV story for the past few months, but he didn't. As the opening 'Wizard of Oz' takeoff showed, they really do want to make believe all of this was a dream. Good to see Betty White make a cameo though.

So let's get to the nitty gritty:

NBC has been recycling their 'Jay Leno Show' promos to prep for Leno's return to 'The Tonight Show' slot. Could there be a clearer metaphor?

Anyway, the new promos have been using a cover version of the Beatles' "Get Back" to not-so-subtly greet the host back from prime time hell. But one very clever YouTube user found a much more appropriate song to accompany Jay on his return back to 11:30 p.m.


[via Buzzfeed]

Maybe he's on Team CoCo? Sources have told Extra that Kevin Eubanks, who has been Jay Leno's band leader since 1994, is quitting. Eubanks joined the 'Tonight Show' band in 1992, after releasing several albums. He followed Leno over to his primetime experiment, 'The Jay Leno Show,' but sources say that Eubanks is "ready for a change" and won't be returning to 'The Tonight Show' with Leno.

This news hasn't been confirmed -- in fact, NBC denied it to one of our fellow AOL writers -- so we have no further insight into Eubanks' alleged decision. TV Guide Canada is speculating that the recent Late Night Wars and the resulting instability has something to do with Eubanks leaving, which is understandable. Even though the folks who work for Leno made out better than those who worked for Conan, the constant moving around and uncertainty can't make for a pleasant working environment.

Internet polls are always a little squiffy when it comes to interpreting actual raw data. But if I were Jay Leno right now, my chin would be quivering right about now.

TV Guide conducted an online poll of their readers and 69 percent of the respondents said they used to watch Jay either on 'The Tonight Show' or his short-lived 'Jay Leno Show' but won't when he returns to the post local news time slot.

Another 15 percent said they would watch Jay in his new time slot, 12 percent said they never watched him in the first place and the remaining 4 percent were undecided.

If you missed the very last episode of 'The Jay Leno Show' last night, here are the "highlights."

Because Leno is going back to 'The Tonight Show,' this wasn't a big farewell. It was more like "yeah, this is the last episode, see ya later" (Leno returns to late night after the Olympics).

Ashton Kutcher told Jay the whole 'Jay Leno Show'/'Tonight Show' plot was one of his punks, Bob Costas made a joke comparing Jay to the L.A. Clippers, Jay showed some "best" moments from the show, and Donald Trump told Jay "You're Fired" (which continues to be annoying - Leno wasn't fired, he's simply getting another multi-million dollar position in the same company).

Here's the whole episode:

I don't think there's anyone who has been harder on Jay Leno over the years than me. I'm a Letterman guy all the way, but there's something oddly...comforting about having Jay back at 11:35. And you know what? Seeing Jay talk about how that Super Bowl ad with David Letterman and Oprah came about is almost touching. It seems like Jay was truly moved by Letterman asking him to be in the ad, even if it was mostly just to do something funny and surprising.

Jay talked about it on the show last night. (For the record, Dave talked about it too, but just made a few jokes, including one about how the people who played Jay and Oprah in the ad did a great job).

This little bit of news has been lost in all of the Leno/Conan/NBC chaos (and overshadowed by this past Sunday's Super Bowl commercial with Jay, Dave, and Oprah), but tonight is the last episode of 'The Jay Leno Show.'

The guests tonight are Ashton Kutcher, Gabourey Sidibe, and Bob Costas. I know, they're not exactly the type of guests that a person has on their final show (no offense to Mr. Kutcher, Ms. Sidibe, or Mr. Costas), but this probably was not meant to be a final show when they were booked. Or maybe it's no big deal even to them and they just want to end things.

I'm sure there's going to be a lot of tears tonight as Jay shows a montage of all of the great bits from his show. Set your DVRs America!

I don't know what's in store for this Jay Leno person after his show ends tonight. But he's a funny, talented guy, and I wouldn't be surprised if NBC gave him another show at some point.

When you look at the surface, it seemed like Jay Leno was quite revealing during his interview with Oprah Winfrey today. He said that he was "devastated" when NBC came to him in 2004 and told him that they wanted to give Conan O'Brien The Tonight Show. He claimed he was "embarrassed" by what he called "a big mess," and that NBC would have handled it better if "they came in and shot everyone. Then it would have only been a two-day story."

But when Oprah repeatedly tried to get Leno to react to how most of the public is reacting to this story -- that Jay should have stepped aside to give Conan a chance to succeed, and that he is unfairly taking back Conan's dream job -- Leno refused to play along. Not sure if he did so because he's truly not self-aware of what this whole mess looks like or he just doesn't care. But as far as Jay's concerned, this was all just business, and his decision to take back Tonight and Conan's departure are mutually exclusive events.

Clips of the interview are after the jump.