His trademark is hi-jinks with fairly hip stars, like getting actress Demi Moore to spit a wad of gum at the camera. Musical acts range from MTV-caliber bands (Spin Doctors) to boomer-soothers (Billy Joel).
Just good-natured fun with guests, like his donning his own copy of C&W star Garth Brooks’s cowboy hat. Or his running “When are you getting married, Harry?” gag with crooner Harry Connick Jr.
Self-referential shtiks–like home videos of a padded-out “formerly fat” Dave-and comic interruptions, as when he asks a cheese-eating 4-year-old geography whiz, “Are you dying to do one of these?” then works a finger into his mouth.
Plays it cozy and Art Linkletter-esque, holding up pix of actor Christian Slater as a toddler clothing model. Sketches have an old-time feel, despite high-tech look: like using video monitors instead of display cards in a gag on how classic TV shows would be plotted today. (Example: Nazis on “Hogan’s Heroes” claim to be Ohio autoworkers.
Audio problems in the Ed Sullivan Theater-guests were sometimes inaudible–seem fixed. Now only Dave seems to have trouble hearing, as when he alternately badgered and ignored baker Bev Tanner during her tiramisu-making demo.
If Dave can be rude, Leno gives guests too much free rein. He let Bill Cosby go on and on with a windy monologue about bicycles; allowed Ross Perot to spin a confusing yarn about interior decorating and rant about NAFTA.
When John F. Kennedy Jr. comes on to announce his wedding to Daryl Hannah, “Bud the Barber”-a straight-razor-wielding Larry (Bud) Melman–offers to trim JFK Jr.’s new goatee.
Welcomes lowbrow literary lion Robert James Waller (author of “The Bridges of Madison County”) to the show, to sing selections from his new album of teary, but manly, ballads.
