• 6.6M number of people who watched the re-premiere of “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” last night
• 17.7M number of people who watched the premiere of “The Jay Leno Show” back in September
• 9.2M number of people who watched the premiere of “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien” source

• In other news: “Saturday Night Live” creator Lorne Michaels is on Team Coco, saying that he’s a guy with a good character who always prevails, “And I’m sure he will again.” source

• Marriage Ref savaging Time Magazine ripped hard: “It was, at least, an interesting object lesson in how TV works. It proved that, if you are Jerry Seinfeld, NBC will put any program you want on the air, and will give you no network notes.”
• Tonight Show tearing USA Today ripped harder: “Monday’s opening monologue, supposedly Leno’s strong suit, was tired, lame and unfunny. In other words, typical of the real Leno, rather than the Leno of public-relations imagination.”

• Looks like NBC is continuing their Winter Olympics coverage with a new downhill event… The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
• A bunch of tweeters (although @offdutygnome was first) • In pretty much the funniest quip to be made about Jay Leno’s return to the Tonight Show. It’s been picking up steam on the site tonight ever since YouTube star Philip DeFranco tweeted about it. If you ask us, this is the funniest thing that will come out of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. It’s all downhill from here. source

• 101,377 number of followers @ConanOBrien has – in just THREE HOURS; way to rally the troops, dude
• 30,061 number of followers @JayLeno has, which has been running since May and isn’t written by him

The pitch-perfect intro

• Today I interviewed a squirrel in my backyard and then threw to commercial. Somebody help me.
• Conan O’Brien • In his heavily-retweeted “Hello, World” to the Web. There was some question as to whether the account was initially real, but it now has a spankin’ “Verified Account” stamp on it. We wonder if this Twitter account is the suggestion of bigger things. You know, like a tour. source

• It’s official. Nothing can top this Super Bowl classic of an ad. It’s a sequel to the Oprah/Dave ad from a year or two ago, and Leno’s appearance is just the salve needed in a late-night war that had just started to heat up again. We approve. The New York Times has a pretty awesome background on how this happened. source

• This commercial probably cost 10¢ to make, but we bet the dividends could be huge if Leno takes some of that money he’s been storing away from “The Tonight Show” to bring this burger joint to Burbank. In fact, he should just stop doing “The Tonight Show” altogether and work there as a manager, since he likes working so much. Nobody would miss his show. source

• The second they turn into superheroes is when it starts getting good. Jeff Zucker is portrayed exactly like the kind of jerk he should be, and Coco is shown with a gaggle of supporters. Awesome.

• Jay’s side of the story: Pretty honest, not douchebaggy, not trashing on NBC, not trashing on Conan, respectful. Why do we hate him again? Oh, it’s because he’s not funny.