Ad-Libbing Late-Night Shows' Return

Without Writers And Celebs, Hosts Are on Their Own

The hosts -- Jay and Dave, Conan and Colbert -- will be the same, but not much else is likely to be when TV's late-night talk shows return to the air starting next week. With the shows' writers still on strike, many familiar elements of the late-night comedy shows are bound to be missing, including, for example, a lot of comedy.

Despite going back to work amid a strike by the Writers Guild of America, the late-night hosts, all of whom are WGA members, have agreed to respect work rules set down by the union. That means, in essence, they can't write material that their striking writing staffs would have produced for them.

That means no topical monologues, no characters, no skits or Top 10 lists that typically make up about a third or more of such late-night staples as "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" and "The Late Show With David Letterman." And: "We expect them to follow the rules," says Sherry Goldman, a spokeswoman for the WGA East, which represents writers of the New York-based talk shows.

Of course, much may depend on what the definition of "writing" is. Does Leno have to ad-lib every joke in his 10-minute monologue to remain within the rules? Would scribbling a few prompts on a cue card constitute "writing"? Would Stephen Colbert's "The Word" segment be kosher if he just riffed on a word at random?

The WGA has already complained about daytime talk host Ellen DeGeneres, also a WGA member. The Writers Guild claims her monologues constituted "struck work," that is, a violation of guild rules. DeGeneres disputed this, saying her material wasn't prepared in advance, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

The shows are also likely to be missing another staple -- glamorous, big-name celebrities pushing their latest movies and TV shows. Members of the Screen Actors Guild have pledged solidarity with the writers and are likely to boycott the shows.

That presages a larger question: How far can the quality of writer-free late-night TV fall before viewers start ignoring the shows and ratings slip back to the level of strike reruns?

Talk-show producers and publicists have been vague in the past week about what form their shows will take. Few have offered specifics about how they'll try to work around the writing restrictions and celebrity-free guest lists. "Tonight Show" producer Debbie Vickers was typical, telling reporters last week that she hoped Leno would be able to perform an opening monologue, although she couldn't say exactly what or how.

The best guess is that the shows will patch together guest lists comprising athletes, authors, pundits and the semi-famous. There will likely be more musical acts, and more talk than comedy.

The immediate future of late-night TV may be on display on the Carson Daly-hosted "Last Call" on NBC. Since returning Dec. 4, Daly, a non-WGA member, has booked reality-show contestants, NFL great Jerry Rice, mixed-martial arts fighter Jimmy Smith and model Karolina Kurkova on his half-hour program.

"I think [the shows] will continue to be engaging and entertaining, but it won't be the show they used to do, or the shows that viewers are used to," said Chris Albers, a writer for Conan O'Brien and a past president of the WGA East. "Over time, the hosts as well as the fans are going to want the format they're used to and enjoy. It will become obvious pretty fast that this is not the show they're used to."

As much as they would like the shows to remain off the air during the strike, the writers recognize that the hosts have been under financial pressure to return to the air, said Albers. Many of the hosts -- Letterman, Leno, O'Brien, Jon Stewart and Jimmy Kimmel -- have been using personal funds to pay the non-writers on their production staffs during the strike, in hopes of buying time until a settlement could be reached.

"It's going to be difficult and I feel bad" for those hosts, Albers said. "But we wish them well."

One potential bright side for the writers: Late-night TV could become a platform to remind viewers about the writers' cause, as sympathetic hosts go to bat for their striking comrades.

That's precisely what happened during the last writers' strike in 1988, when Letterman, then on NBC, hammered his network bosses night after night. To dramatize the absence of written material, Letterman scored points by staging comic "time-wasting" bits, such as calling on an associate producer to play "Lady of Spain" on his accordion. Among other things, he called executives names like "jerks" and "money-grubbing scum." After one tirade, he asked, "I certainly have a bright future, don't I?"

"Tonight Show" host Johnny Carson was somewhat more reserved when he returned to the air amid the strike in 1988 after eight weeks. He repeatedly expressed his solidarity with his writers on the air. But Carson wasn't a WGA member, and thus wrote his own monologues and skits -- something most of his late-night successors couldn't do today without violating union rules.

The central issue in the strike is how much money the writers get when the shows they create are played on the Internet and other digital venues.