A National Late-Night Hallucination
a win for the middle of the road
Hank Stuever: Of course Jay Leno opened his return to "The Tonight Show" Monday night with an "it was all a dream" gag, waking in a sepia-toned, Dorothy delirium from "The Wizard of Oz." Because it was sort of like a bad dream -- a national late-night hallucination -- in which overpaid funnymen retired, said farewell, switched time slots, spent millions on new studio sets, said hello, launched middling-to-awful new shows, then spoke badly of each other and their employer. All to bring Leno back to his old job.