He appeared alongside Halftime Show performer Madonna in one of the ads to promote The Tonight Show With Jay Leno:

Leno also had a brief appearance in the commercial for the Acura NSX car with Jerry Seinfeld – watch the extended version below:

Gawker – “Conan O’Brien Makes Tonight Show Run Against Itself In the Emmys”
Los Angeles Times – “Emmy battle of the ‘Tonight Shows’: Conan vs. Jay…”

When talking about his approval ratings, Obama said Jay was “the only person whose ratings fell more than mine” and he pointed to Leno in the crowd, and said “we’ve all seen what happens when someone takes the timeslot after Leno’s”.

Jay was the host for the Correspondents’ Association dinner this year.

During his final monologue he said “We were on the air five months – it seems like just yesterday I was telling NBC this is not going to work”. Ashton Kutcher, Gabourey Sidibe and Bob Costas were the guests on the final show, with Donald Trump appearing as a special guest via satellite.

MTV report the show ended quite abruptly for the NBC news programme. MTV report “before the talk-show host could give any closing comments to the gathered audience, the feed ended abruptly and transitioned directly into NBC’s scheduled news program… the show’s unceremonious sendoff offered a stark reminder that Leno’s departure from the airwaves is only temporary”.

Leno will go head-to-head with Letterman in the ratings war when he returns to The Tonight Show at 11.35pm from the 1st March. On the penultimate Jay Leno Show on Monday, Jay talked about the Super Bowl commercial he filmed with David Letterman and Oprah Winfrey, saying there was no animosity between Dave and himself.

NBC have now officially closed the website for The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien – www.thetonightshowwithconanobrien.com now just redirects to www.nbc.com.

TV Guide – “NBC Ends Jay Leno Show Early “For Good Behavior”"
MTV – “‘The Jay Leno Show’ Comes To An End”

Monday 8th February – Jay Leno talks about the Super Bowl commercial;

Monday 8th February – Jay Leno talks about Letterman;

I think this is the first time Letterman and Leno have been on TV together in many years since the high-profile Tonight Show debacle of the 1990s. Jay and Dave used to be quite good friends and Leno would make appearances on Dave’s talk show from time to time.

The commercial which aired during last night’s Super Bowl on CBS showed David Letterman, Jay Leno and Oprah Winfrey sitting on a couch watching the Super Bowl (in a similar scene to Dave & Oprah’s previous Super Bowl commercial a while back) with Dave saying “this is the worst Super Bowl party ever” and Leno replying “you’re only saying that because I’m here”.

Very unexpected to see them sitting on the same couch after all this time. Also even more unexpected to see Leno in the commercial which has a promotion strap for the Late Show With David Letterman at the end considering he’s back on The Tonight Show next month.

The commercial was filmed in the balcony of the Ed Sullivan Theatre in New York and it’s reported Leno arrived in a disguise to avoid being noticed by people outside.

Super Bowl 2010 commercial;

Speaking about The Jay Leno Show, Oprah asked “was it against your better judgment to do the primetime show?” he said “well, I chose to do it, so I take full responsibility… I did it because it’s an interesting challenge”. The Jay Leno Show’s ratings were the main reason for its cancellation – Jay said “I felt bad for everybody on the show, and I felt bad for our affiliates”.

Talking about when NBC approached Leno about the move back to 11.35pm he said “it would still be The Jay Leno Show, and I would still do a monologue and a comedy piece, and I thought: “Okay, I’ll do a half hour at 11:30. Conan will do an hour.” And I remember saying to one of the executives, “Do you think Conan will go for that?” “Oh yeah, no problem. We are 75 percent sure Conan will take this deal.” I said okay, [and] shake hands. Again, I’m not a big contract guy. I shake hands. I’ll do a half hour, Conan will take an hour, we’ll see what happens”.

When asked about his thoughts on The Tonight Show and the effects on the ratings after Conan O’Brien took over, he said “if you look at where the ratings were, it was already destructive to the franchise”. Jay revealed he hasn’t yet spoken to Conan since the debacle – “maybe let things cool down and maybe we’ll talk”. But he said he watched Conan’s final Tonight Show saying it was a “great show, good performer and good comic. And a good guy. There’s no animosity there”.

Oprah asked him if NBC could have done anything differently to have made it good for everyone involved – Jay said “anything they did would have been better than this. Anything. Anything they did. If they had come in and shot everybody. I mean, it would have been, “Oh, people were murdered.” But at least it would have been a two-day story. … From 2004 onward, this whole thing was a huge, a huge mess”.

“I regret that it wasn’t handled better… I’m just not sure what I could have done differently… the key is not to be bitter”, he said.

The final episode of The Jay Leno Show airs on the 9th February and The Tonight Show With Jay Leno returns on the 1st March.

Oprah.com – “The Tonight Show Controversy”
Oprah.com – “Jay Leno on Conan O’Brien’s Last Show Video” (video clip)
Oprah.com – “Jay Leno 10 @ 10 Video” (video clip)
Oprah.com – “Oprah Talks About the Tonight Show Video” (video clip)

Popcrunch – “Jay Leno White House Correspondents Dinner 2010″

Seattle PI – “Oprah Winfrey to Interview Jay Leno; Possibly Conan O’Brien”

Highlights of the final show included another “World’s Most Expensive Sketch” to use up the remaining portion of the budget for The Tonight Show, Conan asking what will happen to the almost-new Tonight Show studio he’s leaving behind (“leave the studio cold and empty and rename it the world’s largest metaphor for NBC programming”), Steve Carrell conducting Conan’s NBC “exit interview”, Tom Hanks coming out to greet Conan wearing sunglasses and plying him with alcohol and Will Ferrell’s song to to close the show (with Conan on guitar and Max on the drums).

Conan has been using some expensive music throughout the final week of The Tonight Show and will be sending the bill to NBC to pay for the rights for that – including Satisfaction by The Rolling Stones and Lovely Rita by The Beatles.

Conan’s final speech on The Tonight Show was emotional. He said “every comedian dreams of hosting The Tonight Show and for seven months I got to… I did it my way, with people I love, and I do not regret a second. I’ve had more good fortune than anyone I know and if our next gig is doing a show in a 7-Eleven parking lot we’ll find a way to make it fun… I don’t want to do it in a 7-Eleven parking lot”. There wasn’t one mention of Jay Leno throughout the entire show.

NBC officially confirmed The Tonight Show will return on 1st March with former host Jay Leno. Conan will be able to start a new talk show from September if he wants to – Fox are rumoured to be very interested.

Conan’s final Tonight Show will air on CNBC at 11pm tomorrow night – the usual CNBC 30-minute cutdown version. Reruns of The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien will air on NBC next week.

NBC – “NBC Announces That Jay Leno Will Return To Host ‘The Tonight Show’”
NBC – “Statement From NBC and Conan O’Brien”
BusinessWeek – “O’Brien thanks fans, NBC on final ‘Tonight’ show”
NY Daily News – “Questlove: Use of Beatles’ ‘Lovely Rita’ on Conan O’Brien’s last ‘Tonight Show’ cost NBC $500k”