Sarah Palin made her "comedy debut" on The Tonight Show. (Apparently the running joke of her candidacy doesn't count. Ba-dum-ching!) This allowed us to witness a pair of millionaires chuckling on a Hollywood stage about how they are bloggers' victims.

Back in 1996, Jay Leno had Conan on the Tonight Show as a correspondent to cover the New England primaries. A rather bittersweet moment to watch today, but as this clip reveals, Conan had Jay outshined even on his own show.

On Jay Leno's first night back to Tonight Show hosting duties, he stole two jokes for his monologue. One from Mitt Romney(!?), and another from an ESPN Page 2 sports writer. Proof inside.

Reality has corrected itself, sadly. Jay Leno is back on The Tonight Show and is once again beating Dave Letterman. Last night, Jay the returning conqueror handily clobbered his old nemesis, who could really use a good Palin scandal. [EW]

The day after Leno's Tonight Show premiers, The Early Show invites Howard Stern onto their show to discuss bash Jay Leno. Stern didn't hold back, saying the mere mention of Leno's name makes him want to vomit.

When I said earlier that I'd see you at 11:35, I wasn't kidding! Tonight, Jay Leno returns as host of The Tonight Show, and—admit it—you'll probably watch. Here's your open thread to discuss the action as it happens.

In a couple of hours, Jay Leno returns to The Tonight Show. I will be tuning in. Why, you ask? Because I used to actually like Leno, and—honestly—I'm not sure that I ever really stopped. Inside, I explain.

It's easy to be hyperbolic about how bad The Marriage Ref is. "Televised Abortion" immediately springs to mind. Inside, the mistakes NBC has made over the years with their programming, and how it's all echoed in The Marriage Ref.

While surprises are scarce on NBC tonight—as many of the Olympic events it's covering took place hours ago—the network did throw one curve ball: a new, 60-second, curling-themed promo for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Video inside.

The geniuses at Everything is Terrible have gone and tracked down a copy of the dreaded late night scourge's 1989 film Collision Course and it is embarrassing. It's mostly one long ching-chong Chinaman (from Japan) joke. Yikes. Poor Pat Morita.

In celebration of Jay Leno's return to television next week, we thought we'd give you another reason to hate the guy: his performance in 1989's Collision Course. He plays a Detroit cop with a love of cars and racial slurs!

Today at Gawker.TV, The Simpsons rewrite Black History Month, Kourtney Kardashian's eccentric birthing methods, the gross-out factor of brother/sister ice dancing teams, The Cleveland Show's catchy theme song, and Jay Leno's new promo gets a revamp featuring Radiohead's "Creep."

The announced guests for Jay Leno's second show back at 11:35 are snowboarder/cannabis enthusiast Shaun White and television personality Sarah Palin. Which is a weird enough couch. But is the musical guest going to be Adam Lambert?

The new promo for Leno's Tonight Show is the same ad used for The Jay Leno Show, but with a different song. It's not only obnoxious, but lazy as well. The song used here rings a bit more true.

As the world awaited (still does) Johnny Weir's free skate routine at the Olympics, NBC aired a promotional ad for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. And, honestly, the choice of song proves the network never cared about Conan O'Brien.

When the guy you pay to like you won't stay, it's beyond redemption. People reports that Leno sidekick Kevin Eubanks—whom Letterman dubbed "the guy with the guitar who laughs at everything"—is heading for the door. [People]

Al Pacino steps into Robert De Niro's Italian leather shoes. Amanda Bynes' sex comedy. Judd Apatow forsakes the bromance for Kristen Wiig. Erector Sets' movie adaptation is not a soft-core porn. The Trade Roundup just ate an entire frittata.

• More layoffs at the New York Times may be on the way. Uh oh. [Wrap]
• NBC was planning to lose $250 mil. on the Olympics before the games even started. Now it's worried about low ratings/injured athletes, too. [LAT, NYP]
• More bad news for NBC: A poll finds that 69 percent of the people who used to watch Jay Leno have no plans to follow him back to The Tonight Show. [TVG]
• Two-in-one magazine/catalog Lucky has a new publisher. [WWD]
• Movies: The next Twilight installment will consist of two separate movies (everyone gets to pay twice!); Brittany Murphy's final film will hit theaters this summer; and Valentine's Day is expected to top the weekend box office.
• Related: Julia Roberts makes a six-minute appearance in Valentine's Day. That means she was paid about $500,000/minute for her services. [NYM]
• MySpace has clearly seen better times. (Like 2005.) [NYT, LAT, ATD]
• TV: The Ellen DeGeneres Show is staying on NBC, not going to ABC; evil empire Wal-Mart is planning to produce "family-friendly" television programming; and Sarah Palin's fave show, American Chopper, has been canceled, gosh darnit.

Last night, Jay Leno said goodbye to NBC for the final time the next three weeks, as his failed primetime experiment came to a close. And who better to give him a sendoff than The Donald himself, live via satellite.

• The Jay Leno Show ends its run tonight. It was actually scheduled to conclude on Thursday, but NBC moved it up to tonight to take advantage of the lead-in from The Biggest Loser. Make of that what you will. [NYT]
• Ellen DeGeneres takes Paula Abdul's seat on American Idol tonight. [LAT]
• The second season of Jersey Shore will be set in one of the few places in America that's cheesier than the Jersey Shore: South Beach. [Movieline]
• Were CNN's ratings so lousy last week that it sent Anderson Cooper and Sanjay Gupta back to Haiti in the hopes it would give the network a boost? Hey, it's a theory! (And from CNN's co-founder and former CEO, no less.) [HP]
• A Playboy shareholder has filed a class action lawsuit against the company, claiming Hugh Hefner's been sabotaging efforts to sell the company. [TMZ]
• Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit issue has been unveiled. It's the issue that keeps the lights turned on at SI, as you probably could have guessed. [MW]
• The White Stripes are kind of ticked off that the U.S. Air Force used one of its songs in a commercial that aired during the Super Bowl. [NYT]
• A Sopranos-themed musical is not coming to Broadway. Reassuring! [NYM]