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Jay Leno and NBC sued over monologue joke
Published: 1/25/2012 8:39 AM
Last Modified: 1/25/2012 12:51 PM


Is the joke on joke on comic Jay Leno, host of The Tonight Show With Jay Leno," airing at 10:35 p.m. weeknights on NBC, channel 2, cable 9. MITCHELL HAASETH/NBC

A recent joke about the summer homes of Republican presidential candidates has caused Jay Leno and NBC to be sued.

The “Tonight Show” host caught heat last week after some viewers were offended by video that accompanied Leno’s monologue on a recent broadcast. It included a video segment was supposed to be “The Insider” TV show showing the summer homes of the presidential hopefuls. Instead of displaying Mitt Romney's Lake Winnipesaukee, N.H. home, the video showed the Golden Temple in India’s holy city of the Sikh religion Amritsar. The temple is considered a shrine and spiritual center of the Sikh faith.

The gag wasn’t funny to members of India’s Sikh community and one, Dr. Randeep Dhillon of Bakersfield, Calif., filed suit Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court on behalf of himself and Bol Punjabi All Regions Community Organization. The suit charges that the broadcast was libelous and exposed Sikhs and their religion to ridicule because it depicted the holy shrine as “a vacation resort owned by a non-Sikh.”

According to deadline.com, Sikh leader Dalbeg Singh said community leaders will ask Leno to apologize. India’s foreign ministry also lodged a formal complaint with the U.S. State Department in Washington.
But the State Department is coming to the latenight talk show host’s defense, citing the First Amendment.

“I hope (Leno will) be appreciative if we make the point that his comments are constitutionally protected in the United States under free speech and, frankly, they appeared to be satirical in nature,” spokesperson Victoria Nuland told the Hollywood Reporter Wednesday.

The video has been removed from NBC's Web site.



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Rita Sherrow grew up with TV. Yes, it was the ever-present “sister” from another techno mother. At first look, it was instant "Like." From then on, the TV had to be on in every room while she studied, elementary school through college. An Air Force brat, she attended school in three states (Oklahoma, Montana and Georgia) and two foreign countries (Germany and Bermuda) and graduated from Broken Arrow High School and the University of Tulsa with a degree in journalism/advertising. She first interned in the advertising world but, when a J-School professor (who also covered politics for the Tulsa World) offered her an internship at the newspaper, she took him up on it. The rest is history. She has served as bridal editor, senior features writer for the women’s section, food editor and is television editor of the Tulsa World. In addition to writing about TV shows and interviewing the stars for “Scene” stories, she also writes a TV column for Weekend and produces the Sunday TV World listings magazine.

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