One sometimes hears the same joke on two of the late night comedy shows.  Some ideas are just so obvious, after all.  When Southwest Airlines announced a new policy, every joke writer in town probably came up with the same idea at the same time and it made it onto no less than four shows.  There is no suggestion of theft here.  Leno, Letterman and O'Brien had all taped their shows before any of them aired and, if you know the other guy's doing a joke, the last thing you want to do is duplicate it.  These are just offered here as a record of an interesting coincidence...and a study in some microscopic differences in approach.

THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO - June 19, 2002
Starting next week, Southwest Airlines says they'll begin charging passengers two seats...charging you for two seats if you're too big to fit into one seat.  Of course, the problem with that is, you're paying for two seats, you know what that means?  Two meals.  Now, you're making the problem worse...

LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN - June 19, 2002
Southwest Airlines is charging heavy-set people, fat people, people who are overweight...charging those people for two tickets whenever they fly.  And as you can understand, the fat people were stunned and they were outraged and they were really angry and then it occurred to them, "Wait a minute, that's two meals."

LATE NIGHT WITH CONAN O'BRIEN - June 19, 2002
This is a weird story but I swear it's true.  Starting next week, Southwest Airlines will begin charging overweight passengers for two seats.  It's a true story.  Yeah, and at first, overweight people were really offended by the announcement.  Then they realized they'll get two meals.

DENNIS MILLER LIVE - June 21, 2002
Southwest Airlines announced this week that it will begin enforcing a new policy where obese passengers will have to buy two tickets if they can't fit into one seat.  On the positive side, they would be entitled to two meals.

P.S. And, as has been noted, Southwest Airlines does
not have meal service on its flights.