Conan O'Brien returned to the air sporting his "strike beard" Jan. 2. Copyrighted photo by Dana Edelson, courtesy of NBC. Below: David Letterman returned to his Late Show with writers. Copyrighted photo by John Paul Filo, courtesy of CBS.
After Conan O'Brien finished a bit on his Jan. 3 show in which he spun his wedding ring on his desk, with a producer timing the spin, a woman in the audience shouted, "Again!"
Conan paused and said, "Trust me, there's time to do it again." Sitting back in his chair, he added, "Let's not be in a rush to do it again."
It was one of many moments Conan wung it on his first show back since the start of the strike by the Writer's Guild of America. The strike is not over, so the 12:35 a.m. gabber was on the air without writers, and, as a Guild member unable to do any writing for himself -- his lead in, Jay Leno, apparently interpreted the union rules differently, but more on that in a few graphs.
So, Conan was out there without a script, finding out how long an hour can be on national television.
Since Conan is a naturally funny guy, he was reasonably (though notably darkly) amusing trying to navigate through a show without the usual trappings.
That was interesting, but for how long?
The return of the late night talk shows yielded varied results:
~ CBS' Late Show with David Letterman bowed with working writers, thanks to a deal Letterman's company worked out with the Writers Guild to come back to work for his show and the follow-up Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson.
One of Letterman's highlights was a Top 10 list of striking writer's demands, delivered by writers. No. 3 was Law & Order scribe Gina Gionfriddo, who has a new play, Becky Shaw, premiering at this year's Humana Festival of New American Plays in Louisville. Her demand: "I'm no accountant, but instead of us getting 4 cents for a $20 dollar DVD, how about we get $20 for a 4-cent DVD?"
There was a lot of self-deprecating humor, like Biff Henderson coming in, well into Letterman's monologue , to ask when the writers would be back. And Letterman even leaned on some things he said he would have done if the writers had not returned. The "Know Your Staff" segment turned out to be a sweet moment where Letterman interviewed an associate producer and showed something a lot of us who cover arts and entertainment already know: most of the people who work in the field are moms and dads, husbands and wives, just like us. Their work just happens to be seen by millions of people.
But overall, Letterman's mood was crabby, and probably moving even closer to the loose spirit of his old NBC show.
Meanwhile, back at the Peacock: On The Tonight Show, Jay Leno followed in the spirit of his predecessor, Johnny Carson, who returned from a 1988 writer's strike penning his own jokes to relatively good reviews. That's got Leno in hot water with the union, which contends members can't even write for themselves on struck productions. It was occasionally painfully obvious Conan was following that rule.
Outside of the controversy, Leno writing for Leno worked to an extent, as he touched on topics including the presidential primaries. Before he was the Tonight Show host, Leno was one of the funniest comedians out there, and there were reminders of that Wednesday and Thursday. But he was also clearly stretching and filling time.
Where Leno and O'Brien may find themselves at the biggest disadvantage is after the monologue, when they go to the couch. The conventional wisdom seems to be stars will be loathe to cross picket lines to appear on struck shows, while Letterman's couch will be safe with the Union label. Jan. 2 was a prime example: Letterman had Robin Williams, Leno had Mike Huckabee. Leno did win the ratings battle that night, but if this drags on, you have to think Letterman will gain ground with a better written show and more star power.
Funny thing is, while the writers are picketing the NBC shows and ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live!, those programs may just be proving how important the writers are.
Comments