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Two men wanting the same job which only one
could get…yeah, it’s feud time… In 1992 NBC
had to decide who should replace Johnny Carson as the host of
The Tonight Show. The two choices were Leno and Letterman and
this was a much publicized competition. Letterman’s show
had aired directly after The Tonight Show and Letterman along
with many others expected that he would gain control after Carson’s
departure. NBC decided to go with Leno and one year later when
his contract ran out Letterman left NBC to compete against Leno
on CBS. Letterman won the ratings battle for almost two years
before Leno overtook him in 1995 and never looked back. When Leno
announced that he was retiring from The Tonight Show in 2009 it
seemed to rekindle the feud a little. Letterman took shots at
Leno on his show referring to Leno as a ‘lame duck’.
This feud was the basis for a book and the HBO movie The Late
Shift. |
