I think we can all agree that Jay Leno's hiring of ex-Howard Stern sidekick John Melendez to replace Leno's original announcer Edd Hall was one of the stupidest, most odd decisions in Tonight Show history, right? (Right?) So I wasn't surprised to hear Hall's voice on one of the comedy bits that Letterman used to insult Leno earlier this week. But why did Hall do it?

You can probably guess the answer. He says that he even though he likes both Leno and Letterman, he "doesn't feel any allegiance to Jay" and he "never left on bad terms with Letterman." Hall started his career on Letterman's old Late Night show at NBC. He says that no one at Leno's show has called him about what's going on in the late show wars and that he didn't do it to "get" Jay, he just thought it was a funny comedy bit. He did a second one that's going to air soon.

[via TV Tattle]

What a difference 15 years makes.

I have to hand it to Leno and NBC. It's a great idea to air older episodes of Leno's show during this strike. I've been saying for a couple of years that the late night shows should run repeats from years ago when they have repeat weeks instead of an episode we saw just a week or two ago. Leno's doing it, though I wonder if it's more of an NBC decision and not one that Leno made.

Last night he aired an episode from June, 1992, which was only one month after Johnny Carson retired and Leno took over the show (with the controversial Helen Kushnick still producing the show). It's interesting to note the differences between Leno 1992 and Leno 2007.