Jay Leno joke-stealing, old news according to Howard Stern

Jay Leno is taking heat for telling a joke that used the same subject and a similar punchline to one told on a late night Fox News show, "Red Eye."

The set up for the joke was the news that the State of California has been ordered by no less an authority than the U.S. Supreme Court, to release approximately 40,000 prisoners. The punchline was that since so many prisoners will be on the streets, the Oakland Raiders might be able to sell-out their home games when the new NFL season begins.

The prison release had been ordered years ago and California asked for and received many extensions to deal with the situation. Not only are the state's jails overcrowded but there are now too few medical professionals to keep inmates treated in a timely fashion - deaths have resulted from the shortage. For more on that decision, click here for "Supreme Court splits 5-4 on release of CA prisoners."

Getting back to the joke-stealing controversy, on Saturday night's edition of "Red Eye", Andy Levy mentioned that the joke he told on the subject early last week somehow found its way into Jay Leno's monologue on Thursday night's "Tonight Show".

Both Mediaite and Entertainment Weekly reported that the "Red Eye" host, Greg Gutfeld countered Levy's comment with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek. "Wow, Andy, I can’t believe you traveled to the future, stole that joke from Jay, then traveled back to tell it on Red Eye,” Gutfeld said.

With all the fuss about it, "Red Eye" will more than likely see an uptick in viewership. Neither the jokes nor the punchlines were precisely the same, but they were close enough to have the subject raised. Meanwhile, no one from Leno's show got back to EW when it attempted to get a comment from the folks at NBC. This is not the first time that other comedians have made accusations about Leno taking material that isn't his and making believe it is.

For more than a decade, radio personality and host, Howard Stern has railed against Jay Leno lifting bits from him; at least the clean material from Stern. Howard has not given up calling Jay names whenever he gets a chance. In January 2011 he was a guest on one of the first few shows that Piers Morgan aired when he joined CNN, and he repeated his accusations.

The Fox TV affiliate in Boston reported it the next day. "Just the mere mention of Jay Leno's name makes me to want to vomit," said Stern. The most recent joke-stealing charge leveled by Stern against Leno concerns a comedy bit from Stern's radio program, that centered on a live chicken predicting winners of NFL games. "This must be a giant 'Punk'd' on me," said Stern following the incident. "This guy's ripped off like ten major things from my show. But the chicken thing we did for years.

In years past, going back to the 1990s, Leno and Stern were still on speaking terms. Jay would call in to the early morning radio show that Howard did on a terrestrial radio station in New York City. He'd try and defuse Stern's accusations and attempt to explain that sometimes, great comedy minds think alike. To be fair to Leno, he has joked about the Raiders fans being punks and thugs for years.

Put that together with the fact that in California, the U.S. Supreme Court case was big news to citizens who are skittish about inmates being released in large numbers. Leno's opening monologue meanders through both serious and silly topics from that day's news. In the meantime, everyone in the comedy world is back to business as usual.

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

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