Nov. 7: Ellen DeGeneres crosses picket line to tape her talk show (the first to cross--says audience members who have tickets, arranged for flights, accommodations and other small business owners not in the limelight effected).
Dec. 3: Talk show host Carson Daly returns to work without writers.
Dec. 7: Negotiations break off.
Dec. 28: Worldwide Pants, which owns The Late Show With David Letterman, negotiates separate deal with WGA.
Jan. 2: Letterman (sporting a beard) returns to air with scripts, while Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien (sporting a beard and sitting in the rafters) and Jimmy Kimmel resume their respective shows without writers, though Leno admits to writing monologue (well sorta-kinda with a twist of a phrase). The WGA were clearly watching!
Leno in his dialog admitted to enjoying returning to the days of old when he would sit late at night preparing for his performances at clubs by write down his material then to awaken his wife, Mavis; and try the jokes out on her. That was the Writing Down Material Twist of a Phrase that was a NO..NO from this reflection of Jay's creative juices working in the past, which he says he missed doing. This caused the WGA to claim foul and threaten he must pay somehow (?). Leno in this same nightly monologue said his decision to return was the effect on all business owners and their employees related in some way to making a living from this industry. The camera then showed the frame of two attractive hookers leaning against an ally wall, while-voice over-Leno claimed "their backs had been pushed up against a wall" from this industry strike. A couple nights later after the WGA press attack on Leno's scripting via his dialog, Jay returned again to make note of past thoughts for material that night and with wink added: "but I didn't write them down".
You might have even caught Huckabee playing his guitar on the Leno show recently; but the next day played ignorance that he knew he had crossed a picket line. He thought it had been settled? The ignorance of the Rush comment which caused controvery and ignorance of the WGA strike picket line.
Pamela Anderson appeared (flying in from someplace out of Canada) and said she noticed all these sign holders greeting her. Leno laughed and said there was a WGA strike going on, and Anderson replied: "Did I do something wrong again?"
Now Dick Clark (an icon)and the HFPA is going after NBC for licensing fees figuring MOL a million dollars for airing a 3 hour Globes-Branded Telecast, excluding it from other Broadcast Networks by re labeling it as a "news conference" to get rid NBC of this outrageous fee they so claim is now suddenly unfair. (Normally they pay $5 million).(Go Dick!)
NBC has seen sponsors pull out and reportedly must give back a major chunk of the $10 million-$15 million in ad revenues the three-hour show typically generates.
Insider/off track note: Leno tightened his expenditures a little himself in 2007 by requesting of his employees at Jay Leno's Garage to tone down the unsuspected last year's outlay of $60,000 in Christmas decorations for his garage. I am told Jay and Mavis did; however, spent Christmas day with his 12 employees and their families at JayLenosGarage.
So the writers have every incentive to hold out as long as possible because they're not losing any money. Everyone else is. By the bucket-load, with sweeps right around the corner. But sacred cows of the industry have been sacrificed, too many prima donnas, and I've the feeling that this time around, the writers aren't going to get what they want, and by this time next week, we'll be hearing outrage by the WGA over writers who are crossing the lines.
They have been writing garbage and the shows have been sliding downhill. Bring back the fifties and sixties reruns when the writers were still sane, married, went to church and had a family to support.
I clicked on YouTube a minute ago. It was still there.
YouTube has stuff on it as good as the best Bob Hope or Carol Burnett ever produced. The quality of the armatures has reached the quality of yesterdays professionals. Longer offerings will come.
So why should I care about a bunch of whiny self absorbed and self anointed “beautiful people”?
Maybe they will sue each other out of existence.
Nobody cares. Colts 7 - Chargers 7. Still in the 1st half.
Wow, those writers really have us over a barrel. Its hopeless.
Oh no.
How long can we suffer without them?
Good. They can still get together and have their Mutual Adoration Mating Cluster, and we will be spared it being televised.
I live in Hollywood, CA so I can give my 2c...
From what I know (I have WGA/SAG member neighbors), it’s a splintered group right now. The strike captain 9who’s also a neighbor of mine) is having a hard time scheduling these pampered fools to go on protesting.
Look, MOST of these writers would prefer to be at Starbucks/Coffee Bean on Sunset RATHER than wave a sign 10 hrs a day in the cold. Case in point, the 1st week of the strike, they were in full force on Gower (a long avenue where small prodn co’s operate). The 2nd week, they were gone.
The WGA members who make the most money (e.g Shawn Ryan of the Shield & The Unit) are also Producers who make money.So there’s a conflict on cash flow.
There’s a saying in the industry: you want the glory? be an actor. You want the money? Be a producer.
So right now, the writer-producers are the ones receiving the LARGE royalty checks, and you will not catch them at the picket line..because they dont care. The ones pushing for the strike are the militant WGA board members who dont earn squat so they push for this action.
So if these foold want to stretch this for a year, the better. From a buddy of mine who wroks at Devt for Disney, they’ve got scripts up to their eyeballs anyways.
Golden Globes is a farce anyway.
The writers are striking?
Now, since many of the WGA just want to write, and don't care about producing, they ought not to have to deal with this crud... but such are commie-style labor strongarm tactics. Watching Ellen, Carson Daly, Leno and O'Brien squirm and cross the picket lines has been kind of delicious. One of the highlights of absurdity is the continued insistence that Jay is "ad-libbing" his monologue, because, as a WGA member himself, he can't write his own jokes.
Much as I’d love to celebrate, I cannot. This is the last thing the U.S. economy needs right now. Remember, Entertainment is our #2 Export, right behind airplanes. This is going to hurt a lot more than just California.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus