Jay Leno is a man of many contradictions. He said he was retiring his version of the Tonight Show in 2009. He did not. He specializes in low stakes interviews about iPod playlists and pets but will occasionally lay into a guest, like Monday night's Karl Rove, with a no-nonsense line of questioning about suicide, low self-esteem and shame. He has generated over a billion dollars for NBC and owns close to 100 expensive, vintage vehicles -- but he houses them in a "crappy garage" packed with cheap knickknacks, thousands of Headlines cards and presumably a few dead cats trapped under the debris. Jay Leno is a hoarder, and with the help of his wife Mavis and a cable channel you've never heard of, the Tonight Show host is seeking help.
Maybe this is just part of Jay Leno's elaborate plan to establish himself as "America's Everyman" or maybe it was motivated out of weekend boredom, but the Tonight Show host is following in the footsteps of reality chef Guy Fieri by allowing the DIY (Do It Yourself) Network into one of his garages for an episode of Garage Mahal. The show will air on Friday, April 9, and according to the show's host, champion pro wrestler Bill Goldberg, the transformation starts out pretty ugly:
"Jay suffers from the same sickness a lot of us suffer from, and that's Crappy Garage Syndrome. He's a hoarder like all the rest of us. It gets to the point where your garage is just a storage bin. For a guy who's got such wonderful automobiles, it would be nice if he had a nice place to display them when he gets home -- or at least park them. When we got to his place, I won't say the rooms were uninhabitable, but for an automobile, they were pretty much uninhabitable."
According to a press release circulating this morning, Garage Mahal is able to give Jay and Mavis an unbelievable "his" and "hers" garage renovation, complete with "technology out of a James Bond film:"
Merging modern technology with a classic Tudor style, Leno's is turned into the ultimate showcase garage. <span
class="pullquote right">So he doesn't have to back out, he gets a 22-foot in-floor turntable carved out of concrete, custom mahogany doors operated by high-tech fingerprint access and a universal remote, and an industrial style bathroom with a plasma cut sink. If that's not enough, underneath the main garage, a subterranean storage unit is transformed into a modern presidential library for his beloved car magazines and books. His wife Mavis receives a major remodel including a refurbished floor, new and updated lighting, and extra-large cabinets to display Leno's memorabilia.
The network also passed along before-and-after photographs of the host's -- or at least his garage's -- miraculous transformation:
Congratulations to the DIY network for booking its biggest star yet while simultaneously eroding its mission statement. Look for the channel to continue expanding with a very special episode of Man Caves next September in which the network pimps out an actual cave in Bronson Canyon for Conan O'Brien.
[Photo Credit: DIY Network]