Joe Hobby (right) with "The Tonight Show' host Jay Leno.

Joe Hobby (right) with "The Tonight Show' host Jay Leno.

This is an opinion column.

H ello Sand Mountain!  I’m Joe Hobby and I’m a comedian and writer from Birmingham.  I’m happy to say that a couple of times every month I’ll be doing a column for The Sand Mountain Reporter. You’ll find some of my stuff is  funny, some sad, and some is even inspirational. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I do writing them. 

A lot of people who know me know that I wrote jokes for “The Tonight Show.” And honestly, sometimes when I’m in my home office and see that first check stub hanging on the wall, I still shake my head in disbelief. How a guy from Birmingham, Alabama became a writer for, and friend of, Jay Leno still blows my mind. 

I’m assuming that you, like a lot of other people, would like to know how it all came about. Joke writing was a natural by-product of performing stand-up comedy. For 18 months after my first open mike night, I honed my writing and delivery skills at the Comedy Club in Birmingham Alabama. I slurped up information about comedy the way an anteater sucks up ants. I found a couple of books on writing which became important resources because they taught me joke structure and routining. That led to writing topical one-liners for a local morning radio team who really needed the help. To give you an idea how long ago this was, they paid me in cassette tapes. Nothing like swapping a few jokes for the new Journey release. 

About this time, I noticed an interesting cover on Rolling Stone magazine. It had a joint photo of David Letterman and Jay Leno.  I don’t think you’ll see that happening today without some serious photo shopping. What I remember about the article was the description of Jay - a decent, blue collar kind of guy, they said. In fact, he responds to every piece of fan mail. An idea germinated.  What if I sent Leno some of my topical jokes and asked  him to critique them? That would be so cool to have my own one liners graded by The Man. 

So I got out a legal pad and hand wrote a letter to Jay, one comedian to another. Forget that he was guest hosting “The Tonight Show” at the time, and I was one step beyond knock-knock jokes.  I enclosed about four pages of my comedic gems along with a self-addressed stamped envelope. Hopefully, the future king of late night would write some suggestions in the margins and send them back. Considering the thousands of letters he received each week,  I doubted I was going to hear from him for a while. So after dropping the package in the mail, I forgot about it. 

Two weeks later, I was working in my downtown office when the phone rang. It was my wife, who forgoing the pleasantries,  immediately and pointedly said, “ Hey. I need to know something.  Have you sent some kind of letter to Jay Leno?” 

My heart jumped, but I stayed cool. “Why are you asking me that?”

“Because I think I might’ve just made a fool out of myself.”  

I wisely let that statement go right past me. My experience as a husband had finally paid off. 

Instead I asked innocently, “What could you possibly mean?” 

“Well, I just got a weird phone call from somebody saying they were Jay Leno. He said he wanted you to sign a writing contract. It was really a pretty lame impersonation, so I thought it was one of your idiot friends playing a joke on you.”

Panic flooded me. “No, no, no! Did you hang up? Did you get a name? Did you get a number?”  I was yelling like George Costanza on a "Seinfeld" episode. “Vandelay  Industries!  Vandelay Industries!”

Carol tersely responded, “Well, whoever it was gave me a phone number,  but I’ll bet it’s one of those sex lines. You and your stupid friends.”

“I’ll be the judge of that!” I yelled. “Just give it to me!”

It turns out it was Jay.  He really does read his letters. More importantly, he looked over my jokes and liked the stuff I submitted!   So he gave me his manager’s contact information. When I called her, I got a brief primer on how to submit material, and how I would be paid.  It was a hand signed check from Jay himself.  I also signed an independent work agreement, meaning he would only pay me for the jokes he used, making it the ultimate in free enterprise. Once Leno buys a joke, it’s his to use - in the monologue or in his nightclub act.  

Since this was just before he took over "The Tonight Show" on a full time basis,  I began to watch Jay every Monday night,  looking for style, tendencies, and topics. Finally, I began writing about five to seven jokes a week.  As a point of comparison, by the end of his run on the show, I was submitting about 50-60. Some nights the material flowed so freely that my fingers couldn’t keep up with my thoughts. Other nights, it was all I could do to squeeze out a half dozen lame jokes to fax him.

  Finally, after about three weeks of writing, I thought I heard something that sounded like one of my jokes. I began watching the mailbox like a sumo wrestler watches a buffet line. Within a few days, I received a letter with a Los Angeles return address. I ripped open that envelope and there it was: a light blue check personally autographed by Mr. Jay Leno. At last, I was officially a professional comedy writer!  That began our 25-year association together.  

The joke?  Oh yeah, here it is:

“Scientists are now saying that drinking cow’s milk can be hazardous to your health.  I’ll tell you what’s hazardous to your health. Having your mom catch you in front of the refrigerator drinking milk out of the carton. ”

I know. Any one of you could’ve written it. That’s true, but I’m the one who put it on paper. And because of a fan letter, and an open minded late night host, I got paid for it.     

Joe Hobby is a stand up comedian, an author, and a blogger. Visit https://mylifeasahobby.blogspot.com/?m=1. for more.  Also, follow him on Facebook at: Joe Hobby Comedian- Writer.       

Joe Hobby (right) with "The Tonight Show' host Jay Leno.

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