Taylor Swift Bit Forces Jay Leno to Reluctantly Give Credit Where Credit is Due

By PopEater Staff Posted Nov 25th 2010 01:15PM

Howard Stern has long shouted from the mountaintop of his satellite radio show that Jay Leno has been stealing bits for 'The Tonight Show' for years. Stern specifically mentions how his longtime 'homeless game' was transformed into 'Jaywalking,' Leno's signature franchise. Now Stern isn't the one who finds his material in the middle of 'The Tonight Show' without clear credit.

Last week, we brought you a brilliant video compilation of Taylor Swift appearing surprised at award shows, which we saw courtesy of our friends at TheFabLife.com. Turns out we weren't the only ones who fell in love with the clip. Leno's staff loved it too and a shortened version of the montage was played for Taylor Swift on 'The Tonight Show' Monday night. So Leno gave the video's creators the proper credit, right? Not exactly.

The Swift video was a collaboration between Rich Juzwiak of FourFour.Typepad.com and Kate Spencer. Juzwiak's details what happened when Leno's team saw the video in his post 'Jay Leno Ripped Me Off':

Sean O'Rourke, a research coordinator for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno reached out to me for permission to show my Taylor Swift Is Surprised video during an upcoming sit-down interview with the pop star. "Duh! Squee! Duuuuuh!" I said (not really, but I did go, "HA!" in a quiet gym locker room when I initially read it off my Blackberry). Sean assured me I and/or my blog would get credit. Duh squared, that wasn't even a concern. How silly I become when I'm excited! In my response, I stressed how important it was for my friend Kate Spencer (who came up with the idea for the video in the first place) to be credited, too. Kate and me/fourfour and The Fab Life/both attributions -- however they wanted to do it, I asked that they somehow mention us both. Sean warned me that he couldn't promise any specific mention from Jay, but at the very least, our names would appear in the show's credits -- at least our names would be down somewhere. Great! Since Jay Leno tends toward the diabolical, I wasn't going to get my hopes up that he'd actually say my name on air. I didn't even know if they'd end up showing it at all.

The Original Taylor Swift Montage:

Juzwiak then goes on to explain that a shortened, higher quality version of his and Spencer's video aired during Leno's interview with Swift, with no credit for its creators.

What surprised me the most wasn't so much that Kate and I weren't mentioned, but that the video wasn't credited as having originated on the Internet. This is not an obscure work -- it's racked up over 200,000 views in a week! I thought at the very least, he'd give and indication of this thing's preexistence so that his viewers could hunt it down if they were so inclined. That was, apparently, expecting too much.

But really, the way all this went down is almost as good as if we'd been credited: a chance for righteous indignation is a gift, and I did get to see Taylor Swift's reaction to my video of her reactions, which is deliciously meta and very satisfying in its own right. Her seeming inability to see the humor in her behavior makes me feel like Kate's and my point is even more resounding. She is naive and lacking in self-awareness, it turns out without surprise. What is Jay's excuse?

Update: I heard from Sean, who chalks the matter up to the chain of communication and says that this isn't the first time that a non-Jay Leno creation has been credited as such. Go figure.

Perhaps in a response to the noise on the Web, Leno and the 'Tonight' crew did air a 'blink and you'll miss it' shout-out to Juzwiak and Spencer on Tuesday's show:

Juzwiak tells the New York Times that he's not bitter. "It's preferable just in the sense that it gets me more attention," he said. "A lot more people cared. I feel like a few people would have high-fived me on Twitter if they had seen this thing go down. This reached people who don't care about Jay Leno whatsoever, who weren't watching his show anyway."

A press representative for "The Tonight Show" declined to comment further to the Times. We're already looking forward to seeing if Howard Stern catches wind of it when he returns to the air next week.

Tags: jay leno, taylor swift

Comments

(29)

Thursday 25 November

By Jim

Highest Rank Vote down Vote up Report this

I frigging love this young lady!!!

By Steve

Lowest Rank Vote down Vote up Report this

Yeah, Jim, it is very fashionable nowthesedays for people to fall in love with so-called music stars like to Autotune Queen, Taylor Swift, who can't sing a lick.

Friday 26 November

By LIuxingyurfgew

Wanna know where people go to snag an i-nter-racial rel-ations-hip, say, Just for future reference? “i-nterr-acial Central”? “San Carlos” ? or “San Francisco”?*** BlackWhite Cupid C 0/om *** is the real place that is packed with them. ;)dg

zzzzzzz

By allenschroeder3

High Rank Vote down Vote up Report this

Talk about a "non-story", what a worthless piece of drivel the article was! Making it worse was that some of it was downright unintelligible!

By omraee entertainment

Low Ranked Vote down Vote up Report this

pirate who kiss little grils on her record after stealing my musican performance side the man who says i pissed off santa before tring to off me after carson and during milli at ted store and ted kennedy.

think cab firebird, clap aton jaybird, balmer at christi's
the side you on is not a good one.

motor trend
millis battery

By BTDT

The more I hear about Leno, the less I like him.

By John

Very true, problem is, I like Letterman even less.

By Bill

Did anyone notice the saliva dripping of of Ellen Degenerates chin after checking out Taylors legs?

By fireball12763

That was saliva? My bad, I thought that maybe she had left the house without washing her face. Carry on.

By Scott

WHO CARES PEOPLE!

By racerx

What the hell was this article even about? Talk about BAD journalism.....geeesshh

By booger

Will someone PLEASE fix her hair?

By mickey

This is a story why? I'm sure other talk shows shows show video of stuff without crediting the person who made it but we don't hear about that. I see video on Talk Shows all the time but never hear them say so and so made this video. But Leno is some sort of villian to all of you bloggers because of Conan. It's so stupid. Leno didn't get Conan fired. Conan got Conan fired. It's about time you all accept that and move on. Conan has a new job now.

By judejaded

she's a manufactured celeb (among many), so why shouldn't her reactions be manufactured?

She has earned all the love she gets. This young lady isn't your regular lazy celeb.

By mesaman

It seems to me some of the bloggers here are offended by this young lady who dresses like a lady, acts like a lady, sings like a lady, and exhibits the decorum and propriety of a lady. True, Rihanna, Gaga, and the like she is not. And what a breath of fresh air in this stench of hip-hop and similar genres.

absolutely!

By ofalaska

Taylor is the cure for a lot of crap in the music industry, and the youngest person ever honored by the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Get used to her, she'll be around for the next 60 years at least!

By Ricky

Without an Atotune Taylor Swift would be laughed off stage. Oh yeah, she is already.

By The River Rat

I don't find her exactly attractive, although she does have a very nice figure. I have no idea what songs she sings. BUT there is something about Taylor Swift that I just have to love.

Page 1 of 2