Leno: 'It's Good to Be Home'

Jay Leno had been absent from the nation's TV screens for less than a month, but he returned tonight with renewed purpose. "It's good to be home," he told his Tonight Show audience as he began his monologue (per NBC transcript). "I'm Jay Leno, your host. At least, for a while."

Leno is reclaiming his old job just nine months after giving it up to Conan O'Brien, and only 19 days after NBC pulled the plug on Leno's own prime-time misadventure. "We were off for the last couple of weeks," Leno cracked in his monologue. "Kind of like the Russians at the Olympics. What happened to them?" (More Jay Leno stories.)