It Is Preposterous How Many Movies Feature Jay Leno Talking About What's Happening in the Movie

Twitter user Buck LePard posted a supercut of something I think we all have severely under-appreciated the frequency of in recent film history: how many times there is a scene of Jay Leno describing the events of the movie on The Tonight Show.

This is something I've seen so many times I think it just sort of imprinted on my brain as something that's supposed to be in early 2000s movies to show that the events of the movie are, in fact, a real story in the film's timeline and that the main character has reached a low point of being a literal national punchline.

But just look how many movies Leno has been in doing a fake version of his real job. I mean, in any movie where we need to showcase that the protagonist has fallen on rough times in pursuit of reaching his or her goal, just throw Leno on the screen and have him explain. I totally forgot there was even a Cars version of Leno — imagine those residual checks.

And every single character has the exact same reaction to seeing Leno talk about them: utter disdain. I don't know that there's a single person alive who would claim Leno as their favorite comedian and yet he was one of the most important and obviously recognizable "comedic" figures in pop culture for 20 years. You have to respect the hell out of the hustle.