Despite seemingly insurmountable handicaps--the loss of his striking writers, an inability to find guests willing to risk being considered WGA-undermining picket-line crossers, and a hated timeslot nemesis working at full strength due to his own Guild side-deal, Jay Leno has, amazingly, continued to win the battle of late night since everyone returned to work in early January. Today's NY Times attempts to unlock the secrets of Leno's crazy-making success, noting that despite the lower quality of available seat-fillers, he's been able to do the same show he's always done by maintaining his usual output of tepid monologue jokes. Asked about Leno's ability to crank out dozens of gags per night without the benefit of his absent staff, defenders cite his impressive talent for passing off his stale, unfunny material as fresh:

"He's looser," said the producer of another late-night-show, who asked not to be identified because he doesn't work for NBC. "It seems like more of that stand-up personality that people always liked in him is coming out.

That might not seem to account for 25 jokes a night, but Mr. Ludwin and others associated with the show say Mr. Leno's three decades of work as a stand-up comic has been the biggest factor in those monologues.

These associates say that Mr. Leno is pulling jokes from the deep pool of material he has used in his stand-up act, dropping in more generic -- or just silly -- jokes into his monologues. "Doctors in China have confirmed the existence of a man who was born with three eyes," went one. "Three eyes! Today LensCrafters said they can make him glasses in about an hour and a half."

But he has also, the associates said, used his skills as a mechanic -- Mr. Leno's chief non-show-business passion is working on cars and motorcycles -- to retool old jokes. One longtime writer said that Mr. Leno was taking lines he used about earlier politicians and refashioning them to involve contemporary figures.

Though Leno's obviously been quite successful with this mechanic's technique over the past month, even the most indiscriminating of his aging Middle American viewers might begin to rebel if he becomes careless about how recycles his old, go-to political material, such as by scandalously suggesting that Republican frontrunner John McCain (or, perhaps even more sensationally, Hillary Clinton) has been diddling an intern with a cigar, no matter how loud human-laugh-track Kevin Eubanks roars his approval.

• Leno's Art of Late-Show Maintenance [NY Times]

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