In 1995, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno started beating David Letterman’s Late Show in the weekly ratings after nearly two years of head-to-head competition. Though several reasons have been given for Leno’s sudden success, many have attributed it to the fact that Leno often made jokes about the O.J. Simpson murder trial that began earlier that year. Whether that had anything to do with it would be hard to determine, but a  2014 study  found that Leno targeted Simpson more than any other celebrity during his time hosting The Tonight Show. Between 1992 and 2014, Leno made jokes about Simpson 795 times; only Michael Jackson came close, with a reported 505 jokes aimed at the pop superstar. Videos by VICE Although Leno acknowledged that he may have crossed the line with his Simpson material on at least one occasion, he defended his jokes by pointing out that they weren’t at the expense of the victims. “We’ve never mentioned Nicole Brown. We’ve never mentioned Ron Goldman.…