WHAT IT'S ABOUT: In this second episode of the new season of "Jay Leno's Garage," Leno asks what makes a car a cult classic? As a side question, he wonders the same thing about motorcycles. Naturally, that leads him to Billy Joel's 20th Century Cycles in Oyster Bay. In other segments, Leno peruses such timeless questions as: Which car was faster? The AMC Pacer or AMC Gremlin? Plus, an amusing encounter with Charlie Sheen _ sober a year-and-a-half, he says _ who supplies a particularly good anecdote about "Platoon."
MY SAY: "Jay Leno's Garage" is essentially a ruse by Leno to hang out with old pals and anything on four (or more) wheels that spits out exhaust. In other words, this is the perfect gig for the former "Tonight Show" host. It's funny, usually effortlessly so, because he's doing nothing here that he doesn't want to do. That giant 12-wheeled Landmaster all-terrain vehicle that starred in 1977's "Damnation Alley" and looks like an articulated sausage with a bad attitude? Jay couldn't be happier to make its acquaintance in Wednesday's episode.
He couldn't be happier to hang out with "my old friend" Billy Joel either, and the sentiment appears mutual. Like Leno, Joel can disassemble an engine blind-folded then put it back together again. Gearheads have a way of bonding in ways that non-gearheads can never possibly understand or appreciate. These two have known each other for decades and easily bond here during the few minutes on-screen, and bond some more over that long-ago decade that was so formative for both of them: the 1970s. (Leno is 69, almost a year to the day younger than Joel.)
