Why? Doesn't he just read from the cards anyway? And it's not even live…

Isn't he confident and experienced enough to be able to do that without rehearsing? Besides, I cannot imagine what the rehearsal for such a show looks like…

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Are you unfamiliar with the concept of a dress rehearsal?

There's a whole manner of things that can go wrong with a show, even a taped show that can benefit from editing. There's stunts to be done, pyrotechnics set and props to verify. Generally (assuming they're available), they'll have the musical guest rehearse as well.

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@54,677

Stunts? Pyrotechnics? On Jay Leno?

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@54,679

Yeah. Apparently you haven't been watching long if you've never seen someone perform some manner of stunt/act after he does his monologue. It's a pretty common feature.

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Rehearsal is a necessary evil, especially because he has a writing staff.

Basically what the rehearsal looks like is, he gets up and reads the material (sometimes for the first time if he didn't take a hand in the creation of the joke, usually he doesn't). Sometimes it's an obvious dud and they scrap it, come up with something better. Sometimes things need to be re-written because it sounds strange out loud or is difficult for him to say. Also since he's actually dyslexic, it's a good idea for him to rehearse written material so he at least knows what he's talking about beforehand so he doesn't trip over the words too often.

Also there's the time issue. Rehearsal is when you work out where you want to be on time, know the exact numbers on commercial breaks and plan out the scheduling. As in, today the musical act is performing a longer piece so we chop 2 minutes off the monologue. Or, today the post-monologue skit sucks and there's not enough time to fix it so we'll just make it really short, add a minute to the monologue and give Sarah Jessica Parker 2 extra minutes to look ugly on stage.

This isn't even getting into the actual technical parts that rehearsal serves, talking about lighting, set placements, acoustics, etc. It's a lot of work and needs to be done, otherwise the (lack of) quality shows.

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