Late Nite Diner – All You Can Read (Writer’s Strike Special Report)

We here at spunkybean love television. Well, most of us do. Some of us are really into music, or as it’s more commonly known, “TV without pictures”. For the most part, the impact of the Writer’s Strike has come on gradually, with new episodes tapering off. However, over on the late night talk shows, production ceased immediately. After more than eight weeks off the air, they’ve finally come back. How has this new world without writers affected them? To answer that question, Queenbean, The Don, and EJ filled their brains with talk shows.

The Tonight Show

Jay Leno has long benefited from the plum spot at 11:30 that he inherited from late legend Johnny Carson back in 1992.

How many of our parents just automatically tune the TV to their local NBC affiliate every night out of pure habit? Quite a few, if the national ratings are any indication. As a result, Jay’s numbers are the highest amongst all late night talk shows, and tumbled the farthest—by far—in the strike period, a staggering 24% (Comparatively, Dave was only off 8%). Another reason is undoubtedly the fact that, under normal circumstances, he gets the best guests, due to a combination of said ratings and his location in beautiful downtown Burbank, rather than NYC.

Over almost 16 years, Jay’s affable, every-guy persona has become almost a parody of itself and the show is about as cheesy as the state of Wisconsin. When Jan. 2 rolled around, and he had no writers to come up with some of the more predictable groaners that Jay typically dishes out, his excitement to come out and wow ‘em was clear. I could tell Jay Leno was pumped. I’m not saying he was suddenly all cutting edge or anything, but he just seemed more like a real guy again.

By the time he’d hit the one week mark on Jan.9, shades of pre-strike Tonight Show had returned. Whether he’s doing them all on his own, or has scabs helping him out, the monologue jokes are back…completely lame and punctuated with an ungodly number of rimshots from the band. Kevin Eubanks just sits there, chuckles and counts his money. John Melendez…exists. The one thing missing is the roster of A-List guests. It’s obvious that non-actor employees of NBC have been instructed to make appearances, as we’ve been treated to Howie Mandel and Maria “the Money Honey” Bartiromo from CNBC.

The first guest last night was a reptile wrangler, with an assortment of frogs and snakes. I was slightly impressed that Jay wisely stayed away from agent jokes. But, more than anything, I was reminded how great Johnny used to be with Joan Embry and Jack Hannah whenever they brought any type of animals on the program. Jay just seems frustrated and scared, but not in the funny way Johnny used to exhibit. His supposed stellar interview skills have not exactly been on display either, which was no surprise to me, as the show relies on a huge amount of pre-interviewing that I assume cannot take place in its normal fashion during the strike.

I’m not sure what caused Jay’s first-night-back enthusiasm to wane so quickly, but any possibility that this scenario might make the Tonight Show really worth watching for the host himself has all but disappeared.

The Late Show with David Letterman

David Letterman’s in a different position than the rest. His production company was allowed to bargain individually with the writers, so he and Craig Ferguson have their writers back. (Reportedly, The Daily Show pursued a similar deal, but was rejected by the Writer’s Guild.) Dave could have gone back to business as usual and done the same show he would have done on October 29, only with more jokes about Roger Clemens. But that’s not what he did.

Dave’s whole act is that of a cynic, mildly misanthropic. He would never admit, and in fact, he might not even realize that he is the public face of the Writer’s Strike. He’s the elder statesman who sets the tone for the rest of late night, just like Johnny Carson did in the 1988 strike. This is not the first time he’s found himself in this role. After September 11, none of the other talk shows announced a new episode until after Letterman made his announcement. He may not lead the ratings, but he has the respect of his peers.

Based on the first week of shows since his return, I think it’s safe to say that David Letterman has done more to inform the average TV viewer about the strike than anybody else. You could learn more from Dave’s January 2^nd show than you could from eight weeks of mainstream media coverage. He’s talking about the strike, he’s showing the strikers, and he’s displaying the picket signs. Letterman’s angry, and he wants to talk about it. And being a consummate professional, he manages to put his anger out there without getting strident or shrill. (Dave’s skill was immediately apparent last week during Bill Maher’s appearance. Maher’s traditional righteous indignation is really not that funny when he doesn’t have writers to filter it.)

There was a very strange edge to Dave at first. He attacked audience interaction with this weird fervor, and laughed really hard at some of his own jokes. In the last couple of days, his energy has normalized a little bit. But for the first few days, I think we were all worried that Dave had lost his mind.

And speaking of that, we have to address the Strike Beard. Sure, Conan grew one too, but Dave grew an actual Crazy Guy Beard. Not unlike, as he said, a lost hiker. On a purely mathematical scale, Letterman’s Strike Beard falls a solid second in pop culture’s Crazy Guy Beard Pantheon. He beat out notables like Jack Bauer’s Season Six Beard, Jack Shepherd’s Season Three Finale Beard, and Nathan Petrelli’s Season Two Beard. Granted, Dave still has to bow to Jack Bristow’s Crazy Guy Beard from the Season Three premiere of Alias. But it was a solid effort, and he deserves recognition. (spunkybean – We’re obsessed with men’s facial hair!)

Dave’s definitely had a higher caliber of guests than the other shows, presumable because of his deal with the writers. Most of the big names won’t cross picket lines, but Dave had Tom Hanks and Mike Huckabee on the same night that he had professionals shave his beard on the air. Letterman always delivers a solid show. He may get beat in the ratings by Leno, and Conan and the Comedy Central boys have him outclassed in comedic energy and buzz, but David Letterman consistently delivers a good show, and a great show more often than not.

Late Night with Conan O’Brien

“Did you see this guy the other night playing his guitar? You’re a genius, brother!” -Hulk Hogan on Friday (1/4/08) episode of Late Night with Conan O’Brien

If there’s one thing Hulk Hogan knows, its how to entertain. Live entertainment. Having been a WWF fan back in the 1980s, I would argue there were few performers better at moving and connecting with a crowd. So when he takes a moment as an aside and refuses the spotlight in order to hammer home the fact that Conan O’Brien is a genius, it means a little something.

There’s a writer’s strike? Really? You wouldn’t know it if you watched the return of Conan O’Brien last week, except for the fact he told you. While the other later nighters, from Leno to Letterman and Stewart to Stephen, all severely lack for humor at the moment, Conan has hardly missed a beat. These other shows, now, seem to be lecturing a bit and relying heavily on interviews (save for The Colbert Report), Conan just presses on and his audiences were howling with laughter at least once each night.

Conan has a gift. If he thinks of something, odds are it’s funny. Otherwise, he can make it funny. Exhibit A – The Simpsons Season 3 and 4. Exhibit B – Saturday Night Live, mid 90s. Exhibit C – his commencement speech at Harvard (if you have 15 minutes, I suggest you click the link and read it).

On his first four nights on the airwaves, we’ve been treated to guitar playing, harassment of interns, wedding ring spinning, cat-walk walking, Rock Star, Edith Bunker impersonations, gifts from the NBC gift shop, a Chuck Norris clip, and a German rave club light show. Not to mention his strike beard, quirky antics, and his dancing.

There was a point in time when I took a comedy writing class. I learned what you’re supposed to do when writing jokes or sketches but I never truly mastered it. However, I do know it when I see it. Conan is like a walking lesson in how comedy works. The general rule is heighten, heighten, heighten, and his freakishly tall body aside, he seems to do this without thinking. He didn’t just play guitar with Max Weinberg and the band — he donned a loud country-western jacket and cowboy hat. He didn’t just play his electric guitar during back stage footage — he rigged a portable amplifier, harassed a shows producer, then played his real guitar along with the interns playing Rock Star, and then sang with them. Sang the Beastie Boys “Sabotage”, but not as Conan …as Edith Bunker. Heighten.Brilliant.Will Conan benefit when his writers return? Certainly. His standard 10-minute monologue will be back and his signature sketches and bits will help fill time. But will we viewers benefit?

The Daily Show

Jon Stewart came back on Jan. 7 sporting a unibrow in solidarity with the WGA, which was amusing and subtle, like much of his humor. The first night was heavy on strike talk, including having a labor leader as his guest. Each of the ensuing editions has veered further away from the topic. The biggest change, besides the obvious lack of a script, and Jon’s rechristening of the program as “A Daily Show” since “The Daily Show”, he says, “has writers”, is the pacing.

Stewart relies more than usual on a rotation of clips from the news nets that he can riff on and make fun of rather than throwing to his correspondents. Of course, that’s because those bits are the most scripted and planned. I’m not sure if it’s the fact that it’s been so long since we’ve had new episodes, but, so far, I’m OK with this. They’re doing what they have to in order to get something on the air, and Lord knows, with primary season underway, there’s more than enough for a quick-witted and intelligent former stand-up to talk about on a daily basis.

Thankfully, Jon’s interview skills are as sharp as ever. Can you imagine Jay Leno or David Letterman interviewing somebody who’s written a book on re-taking conservatism, without a staff of writers to conduct a pre-interview and read the book? And yet, that’s what Jon Stewart is doing every night. He won’t always be interviewing somebody that you’ve heard of, but at least he’s heard of them and is familiar with their positions, history, or central thesis. As always, he does a fine job of keeping the guests comfortable and interesting, even when he doesn’t necessarily agree with them.

It simply isn’t possible to come up for one person to generate the level of material we’ve come to expect from The Daily Show, but Jon’s keeping it moving and he’s keeping it funny. Luckily, one of his personal favorite sources of comedy is the media’s coverage of national politics. In primary season, CNN and FOX News are the gifts that keep on giving. Still, we all have to hope the Strike is over by Super Tuesday. You need a full team to cover that.

The Colbert Report

In the interest of full disclosure, it should be announced that we can not be strictly objective when it comes to Stephen Colbert. We love Stephen Colbert. A love that is tender, yet manly. “Robust” is probably the best word for our love.

The Colbert Report was the biggest question mark going into the new shows. Not only is political satire and commentary harder to put together than banter and celebrity interviews, but Stephen Colbert does his whole show in character. Jon Stewart and Conan can actually say what they really think, but Stephen has to do a show without writers as “Stephen Colbert”, rather than as Stephen Colbert. He has a background in improv, but that’s still a lot to ask. (Fun Fact: Years ago, Stephen Colbert was Steve Carell’s understudy in Second City.)

As it turns out, Stephen Colbert doesn’t need us to worry about him. I guess his two years of interviewing guests in character (keeping in mind that some of those guests get the joke and others don’t) have made him pretty comfortable with “Stephen Colbert”. In character, he’s against organized labor, so making a point about the strike isn’t as easy for him as it is for the others, but he still got there. Watching him wait for his text in an attempt to do a segment of “The Word”, immediately after he criticized the writers for striking, was hilarious and gratifying.

His first return episode drew criticism for being clip-heavy, but Colbert’s always used old clips in an attempt to make a point, or to undercut a point. Besides, the retrospective of Mike Huckabee’s appearances on the show, back when he was considered a fringe candidate, are particularly relevant after he won Iowa. And Barack Obama challenging Stephen to a grit-eating contest is always going to be funny.

In his second episode, he actually performed a segment that had been written, but not used, prior to the strike. And then at the end, he ran out of words in his prompter and had a breakdown. “I’ve just got something in my eye. I’ve just got something in my other eye. I’ve just got something…in my heart.”

The interviews have been hit-or-miss, but that’s not unusual. So far his guests have been obscure political writers, pundits, and bloggers. (Dear Stephen Colbert: We at spunkybean are very obscure. I’m just saying.) These kinds of guests are always a risk. Still, even the guests who haven’t been funny have been at least interesting and/or informative.

The key is that Stephen Colbert is a funny person and “Stephen Colbert” is a funny character. The Colbert Report is definitely the show that is the most changed by the strike. Signature bits like “The Word”, “Threat Down”, and “Cheating Death” are unlikely to appear until everybody’s back to work. Even without the recurring segments, America just seems like a happier place when Stephen Colbert is there for us.

The real question is: Are they helping? Do side deals and shows without writers help the cause or hurt it?

It’s safe to say that we think more about TV than the average person. We, as a group, have lost sleep over the Writer’s Strike. (This is not to imply that we actually sleep in a group. We’d be far too involved talking about Arrested Development to get any sleeping done.) Most people, however, are only vaguely aware of the strike. Between the holidays and the lull between Sweeps months and the mid-season programming, it would be possible for a casual prime-time viewer not to know that there even is a strike.

Even those who are aware of the strike may not be sympathetic. A guy who comes home after a hard day’s work providing for his family probably has other things on his mind. Somebody who’s worried that the check for the electric bill is going to bounce isn’t going to care that people who work in their pajamas all day want two and a half percent royalties on Internet content. The fact is, most Americans don’t really follow labor issues unless they work in the affected industry.

With the late night hosts back at work, people are getting information that they didn’t have before. Dave and Conan and the others are letting people know what the strike is actually about. Jon Stewart, especially, has really exposed the hypocrisy of the producers’ stance. (He pointed out that Viacom sued YouTube for one billion dollars over Internet content, the same content they are now claiming doesn’t actually generate revenue.) Letterman’s beard created more publicity for the strikers than anything else up to this point. Just because viewers are educated doesn’t mean they’re going to storm the Paramount Studios, but it has to be easier for the writers to picket knowing that people support them.

Sure, going back to work without writers isn’t the perfect solution. At least this is keeping crews employed and it’s getting the message out to viewers. Plus, we certainly can’t be expected to actually follow primary season without the gentle guidance of Jon Stewart.

We’re all hoping that the writers get what they want, and soon. Some of us have been forced, in the absence of original programming, to interact with our loved ones. It was not pleasant. Please, don’t make us try it again.

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