Well said.

My family and I enjoyed the 70s and 80s VHS tape last night in loving memory to Johnny Carson.

Then, I had to stay up and watch The Tonight Show with Jay Lenno. I found my self tearing up several times during Jay's "Essay" on Johnny. But, as the show went on I felt like the show help me to say goodbye to someone I grew up with. As the show ended, I was able to say "Thanks and Goodbye" to Johnny.

Nobody did it better.

Didn't catch this. Recap, please? Was gonna say I wonder what Conan's going to say tonight, but he's off this week.Hey! His writers worked on that heartfelt "essay" all day yesterday!

Ferguson's story was touching because he spoke from the heart, something the robot Leno is incapable of doing.

He gave two anecdotes:

1) When he was 12, he and his father came over to the US to visit his uncle, aunt, and cousins in upstate NY. His dad and uncle would stay up to watch Carson, but the kids weren't allowed. They would watch through the stairs, though. Carson made his dad laugh (and, per Craig's words, it's hard to make a Scot laugh).

2) When he was in his early twenties, he moved to NYC. Despite being young and cocky, he was scared and lonely living in this large city with many different cultures. He said that Carson made the place seem smaller, since everyone had something in common: they all loved Johnny.

Like William Fuld said, it seemed heartfelt.

thanks. doesn't surpise me that someone that never even knew Johnny could deliver something more heartfelt than the trite speech Leno delivered. surprised he didn't follow it up with a special "Carson"-themed Jaywalking.

Wow, you guys really hate Leno. I think he did a good job, and he's always seemed genuinely grateful to Johnny and respectful of his legacy. I didn't expect him to come on unprepared and just kind of ramble like Craig Ferguson did. I admit I preferred the more off-the-cuff way Craig spoke, but it's not like he was pressured to do a whole tribute show like Jay was. A ton of people were tuning in to Jay just to see what he would say, so I figured it would be more of a professional tribute. I'm not comparing his "essay" to a eulogy, but people get up and read those off all the time. And how are you guys so sure he didn't write that essay, or at least a good part of it?

I've never been huge fan of Leno (I prefer Conan to any of them), but I laugh more consistently at his show than Letterman in the last few years (Will It Float is NOT funny). But for some reason Letterman is still treated like a god and Jay gets treated like shit.

I watched the Carson tribute on Leno last night and really enjoyed the guests. Rickles was hilarious! As for Jay, i tolerated him last night due to the situation. All those clips made me think of when i was a kid and i use to watch Carson, hes simply amazing! Im looking forward to see Conan and Dave say what they gotta say about Carson.

Great tribute show from Tonight Show the other night, it's fun to see old Johnny clips I've never seen before.

If you've read Bill Carter's book The Late Shift: Letterman, Leno, and the Network Battle for the Night, there were a lot of quite ugly machinations by Leno's then-manager Helen Kushnick (who recently passed away) that caused a lot of people to sour on Leno for many years. The Tonight Show managed to crawl back to the top of the ratings thanks to NBC's strong schedule of prime-time shows from the middle 1990's on as lead-ins.

You have to feel sorry for Leno, given those circumstances. I think in the end, even Johnny Carson would have sympathy for Leno because of how Leno ended up being the current host of The Tonight Show.