Bristol Palin‘s appearance on The Tonight Show started off with a bang, with Palin poking fun at host Jay Leno‘s signature feature — his chin — after he subtly asked her about her new, surgically enhanced visage. But it was Leno’s other guest, Don Rickles, who really got the party going, as Don Rickles is wont to do. A word of warning: Don’t invite this guy to your bachelorette party unless you’re prepared to do something regrettable involving an inflatable alligator.

Tonight Show host Jay Leno decided to try his hand at delivering a joke about the recently-wrapped Casey Anthony trial. It’s a challenging undertaking given that his writers have to 1) come up with a joke that hasn’t already been made roughly 78,943 times on Twitter and that 2) isn’t in poor taste, given we’re dealing with the tragic death of a young child. So how did Leno fare?

Late last week, second quarter ratings for late night comedy programs were released, and one big ratings changeup has been getting lots of media attention. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, despite being on a cable network, received more viewers within the 18-49 demographic in the second quarter than The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Stewart’s program was watched by 1.295 million viewers in the demo, while Leno only received 1.292 million.

NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel told NBC’s Jay Leno Wednesday night “it’s probably time to end the global war on terrorism.” Discussing Wednesday night’s speech by President Obama (which had not happened at the time the Tonight Show taped, though Engel had been briefed on the speech), Engel compared the 9/11 attack to the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, describing one as the work of “19 guys with box cutters” and the other the work of a 24-man SEAL team:

NBC’s Late Night host Jimmy Fallon speaks honestly about his own company’s missteps in handling the transition from Jay Leno to Conan O’Brien–and then back–calling the original decision to tell Leno he’d eventually be replaced by O’Brien “an insult.”

Looks like the Red Eye time machine was working overtime this week, as yet another Jay Leno joke from the future somehow ended up on the May 31st edition of the show. This time, Leno’s program made a joke about Anthony Weiner ending up hosting a CNN show a week after Greg Gutfeld did– and the resemblance after Leno seemed to have pulled a joke from Andy Levy two weeks ago certainly raises eyebrows.

Katie Couric is now free from her evening news anchor shackles and appeared with Jay Leno last night to reveal some of her real thoughts on the behavior of Donald Trump and Sarah Palin. Who would have guessed that with Couric, of all people, the NBC censors needed to be ready to bleep some of her language.

NBC’s late night comic Jay Leno got some unflattering attention from Fox’s overnight Red Eye crew, who suggested one of Leno’s jokes sounded awfully familiar. The show’s Andy Levy began by airing a delightfully amusing clip from Leno, from May 26

Meghan McCain stopped by and chatted with Jay Leno last night to talk about her dating life and appearing “naked” in a PSA for skin cancer. Leno brought up Glenn Beck‘s much criticized response to the commercial and McCain took on Beck, with much approval from the studio audience.

In an interview set to air on NBC’s Tonight Show Tuesday, Lindsay Lohan made her first public comments since a judge found her in violation of her probation and sentenced her to 120 days in jail. Lohan remains free on bail pending an appeal, and she told Leno she knows she’s “made a lot of mistakes,” but she’s “not a kid anymore.”

In a clip from the recorded interview that aired on NBC’s TODAY, Lohan says her career began to unravel thanks to “being young, and being in a position that I was in, you don’t really take the time to appreciate what you have.” She says she let others make decisions for her in a “whirlwind” and she says she’s “in the clear now.”

In the wake of last week’s Wonkette/Trig Palin controversy, people keep sending me updates, related stories, and new slights against the special needs population, the latest of these being a Los Angeles Times editorial that calls Sarah Palin a “special-needs case.”

This is as good a time as any to clarify a few things about the issue of special needs-bashing.

NBC’s late night comic Jay Leno took on CNN’s Paul Steinhauser on the Tonight Show the other night. What? Who is CNN’s Paul Steinhauser, you ask? Geez. What kind of political geek are you? Steinhauser’s CNN’s deputy political director based in the DC bureau, and he appears on camera during the day, and often in the background when anchors like Wolf Blitzer are doing liveshots from the DC bureau. Leno aired a funny clip stringing together a series of these clips, and in each one, as soon as the liveshot begins, Steinhauser picks up his phone–to Leno, clearly faking importance with a mock three second phone call.

NBC’s Jay Leno put the NBC graphics department to work in an effort to determine if Fox News correspondent Mike Emanuel would look better with his hair repositioned into an Abe Lincoln style beard. Spinning Emanuel’s hair from the top of his head to his chin reveals a sharp, distinctive and suitably White House look that could just propel Emanuel into the very top echelon of national correspondents.

A cable news feud pitting two unlikely characters against each other, Fox’s Glenn Beck and CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, shows no sign of slowing. On NBC’s Tonight Show Thursday, Zakaria (alongside at least two Kardashians) mocked Beck, his chalkboard and his math skills. “I corrected his math,” he said. When Jay Leno asked about Beck’s comments that Zakaria is an “America basher and useful idiot,” Zakaria smilingly shot back.

Chris Matthews appeared on The Tonight Show last night with and predictably revealed his admiration/adulation for President Barack Obama, particularly for the White House response to the disaster unfolding in Japan. He also brazenly shared his opinions on many other news items of the day, but was most vocal in his critique of Governor Mike Huckabee‘s recent comment that Obama grew up in Kenya learning about the Mau-Mau Revolution. Matthews did not demure in his critique, simply saying “it’s racist!”

Underdogs triumph! The late night ratings are in for the February sweeps, and CBS’s David Letterman and ABC’s Nightline are loving the results. Letterman’s Late Show beat archrival Jay Leno‘s Tonight Show among viewers 18-34 for the first time since Leno’s return to late night. (Among total viewers, Leno won)

Comedians are notoriously a strange breed of character; the line between an affably absurd outlook played for jokes, and a cynical self-loathing personality is a dangerously thin one that could break at any minute. Which is why David Letterman‘s beseeching of NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams to never go on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno is so entertaining. Because while you know that he’s just joking around, you can honestly sense Letterman’s palpable dislike of Leno in a way that almost makes Williams uncomfortable.

The Tonight Show host Jay Leno spoke out on a range of topics from David Letterman to retirement, but most interesting may have been his response to recent accusations from radio host Howard Stern that Leno is a comic thief. In defending himself from the charge, Leno also came to the defense of another nemesis, Conan O’Brien, when O’Brien came under a somewhat similar attack.

Last night on Late Show, David Letterman was joined by Howard Stern and the two had a lively conversation. While many people have reported on the many Jay Leno disses that Stern was dishing out, at this point, hearing either of these guys talk trash about Leno is pretty old hat. The amazing thing is that everyone reporting on that missed a potentially huge story that came right after when it appeared that Letterman offhandedly announced that he’d retire in two years. Is Letterman leaving the show in 2013?

It’s been a year since Conan O’Brien signed off his seven month stint as the host of the Tonight Show with a rousing performance of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s glorious “Free Bird.”. But how much has realy changed in the 12 months since he left the Peacock, joined Twitter, started a nationwide comedy tour and finally landing at TBS?

The sudden and hard-to-justify fame that comes to those unique products of American pop culture know as “reality stars” is a fascinating phenomenon to follow, yet impossible to explain. Take for example the cast of Jersey Shore and Snooki‘s inexplicable inclusion on the NY Times bestseller list this week. Another example was last night’s appearance on The Tonight Show by Mike Sorrentino, aka “The Situation,” who shared with host Jay Leno his dreams of appearing in movies, and yes, one day winning an Oscar for his work. God bless America!

Tomorrow night on Piers Morgan‘s new CNN show, an interview with the always unpredictable Howard Stern will air. Today though some of the controversial comments from the interview are leaking out and they include Stern repeating and amplifying his dislike for NBC‘s late night host Jay Leno.

The folks in the audience for Jay Leno‘s safe-for-all-audiences Tonight Show clearly would’ve rather had a visit from some cuddly zoo animals than what they got: an extended and at times awkwardly tense visit from HBO’s Bill Maher. Talking about the shootings in Arizona and Fox News chief Roger Ailes‘ reported instructions to his staff to tone down language after Tucson, Maher argued it would never happen, as “that’s the rhetoric they love. The right wing loves- the go-to rhetoric for them is ‘wouldn’t it be fun to kill the people we disagree with.’”

Former CNN host Larry King, who just last week promised on his final show not to go away, stayed true to his word appearing on Jay Leno‘s The Tonight Show last night and launching a new career as a stand-up comic. Leno introduced the crowd to the “bright young comedy stylings of Larry King” and King jumped up with microphone in hand and delivered humorous stories (note to comedy bookers: King doesn’t do jokes).

Tonight Larry King interviews Conan O’Brien to learn what he really thinks about the other late night show hosts. Unfortunately, no juicy details are included in this preview clip, but we do learn he’s friends with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, but doesn’t speak to any other hosts. Especially not Jay Leno, since, according to Conan, there is nothing for the two of them to talk about.