At the peak of his popularity, Jay Leno could put his “Tonight Show” audience in stitches merely by sticking a microphone in front of ordinary Americans and asking them easy questions about history, civics, the Bible, or even basic geography.
In a format used since the dawn of radio -- and in our time by Howard Stern -- Leno found that it’s not just kids who say the darndest things. During George W. Bush’s second term in office, Leno took his camera crew to Universal Studios to ask random Americans some of the 100 questions on the U.S. Citizenship Test that immigrants must pass. The footage was simultaneously hilarious and disconcerting.
LENO: “What country did we fight in the Revolutionary War?”
DEBBIE from South Francisco: “Uh, France!”
LENO: “What did the Emancipation Proclamation do?”
DEBBIE: “I don’t know.”
LENO: “What year was the Declaration of Independence adopted?”
LINDA, a schoolteacher from Fresno: (Long pause, gives no answer).
LENO: “Who said, ‘Give me liberty or give me death?’”
LINDA: “Bonaparte?”
LENO: “Bonaparte? He’s not even American!”
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