While I wait for my tea to steep and cool, a few musings on the writer’s strike — in particular, on late night hosts and award shows:
- Couldn’t Jay Leno and the other hosts that have gone back without their writers (i.e., all but Letterman) get around the monologue flap by just performing the monologue in a comedy club or other public venue a few hours before the show? After all, the writers strike doesn’t prevent writers from writing and performing their own material for stand-up in-person performances. He can then just reuse the material.
- What’s preventing hosts like Jay Leno from turning to the Internet? Not for broadcasting the stuff they write, but for having their fans support them by sending in jokes. After all, a fan-base donating jokes aren’t covered by the contract. As long as he doesn’t change the jokes, couldn’t he just do them as “Submissions from Viewers”?
- As for the award shows… has anyone asked why the writers are needed at all? After all, no writers are needed to read a list of nominees and announce the winner. No writers are needed to establish the order of presentation. No writers are needed to present the montage of folks that died (that’s a film editor’s job). They only thing you need writers for is the opening monologue, and the scripted banter between presenters. There’s no reason what that banter (and the thank you speeches, if they are also covered) couldn’t be extemporaneous. Move these shows to a reality show contract, and drop the writers. We might actually end up with better awards shows.
I’m not trying to say we shouldn’t support the writers. I think the producers doth protest too much, and should produce a fair contract. But in the areas discussed above, I’m having trouble seeing why folks are fighting when there are reasonable workarounds.
P.S. It’s National Delurking Week. Would it kill ‘ya to come out from where you are hiding and comment on this post?
