Late-Night Talk Shows in the Dark After Writers' Strike

TV Week had the heartbreaking story of a Canadian couple who had waited two years for their tickets to "The Late Show With David Letterman" and planned a trip to the Big Apple around the date, but instead all they got to see was a notice on the door to Letterman's theater informing them the "box office is closed until further notice."

Appropriately, the strike's first casualty was the head writer of a late-night series -- Tom Johnson, of Fox's weekly "Talkshow With Spike Feresten." During a confrontation at Sunset Gower Studios, Johnson was hit by someone in a Honda Element who announced his intention of running over picketers who did not get out of his way, according to news reports citing witnesses. The local ABC station had video, including a shot of the vehicle, with Johnson's shoe still under the tire.

"The guy basically said, 'Get the [expletive] out of the way,' and then hit the gas and just plowed into this guy," said writer Linda Berston, who witnessed the incident, according to KABC-TV. "The group was just walking across the driveway, and the guy basically started running him over without giving him a chance to move out of the way," Berston said.

Knowing they likely would be out on strike this week, late-night hosts put in their two-cents' worth on the subject last week.

"You may have noticed tonight that I was using a lot of words -- it's because there may or may not be a writers' strike next week so I was trying to get in as many words as I could before something like that happened," Stewart said at the close of his final show last week, on Thursday.

Letterman that night called the producers against whom the writers are striking "cowards, cutthroats and weasels."

Bill Maher weighed in on his HBO talk show on Friday, saying "it's a shame they couldn't work out some sort of agreement because without the writers, who will put those poetic words into the mouth of Tila Tequila?"

Maher told viewers he is a member of the Writers Guild and so can't do any writing on his show, "but I can still perform my duties as a producer. So my guests should not worry -- I can still get you high after the show."

And NBC News anchor Brian Williams stayed well away from the "Weekend Update" sketch during his hosting duties on "Saturday Night Live" over the weekend -- maybe because a large swath of it was devoted to the writers' strike, in the form of a commentary from faux studio executive Roger A. Trivanta (RAT), who explained the studios' hard stance on DVD and Internet residuals:

RAT: You know what it costs to make a DVD? 60 cents. You know how much we charge? $29. The writers now want a bigger piece of the profit. What profit? We asked our accountants to figure out what $29 minus 60 cents is. You know what they came up with?

Faux Weekend Update Anchor Amy Poehler: $28.40?

RAT: Negative $13. It's even worse on the Internet! We post movies and television for free.