Late-Night Comedy Returns Without Writers

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RENEE MONTAGNE, host:

Just in time to make jokes about the New Hampshire primary, late-night host Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert returned to their shows on Comedy Central last night. They've been off the air since screenwriters went on strike over two months ago.

NPR's Kim Masters reports that both "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" went on without material from their writing staffs.

KIM MASTERS: Stewart spent a good portion of his time talking about the striking writers and explaining in sympathetic and satirical terms why the studios are unwilling to pay them a percentage of revenues from the Internet.

(Soundbite of "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart")

Mr. JON STEWART (Host, "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart"): It's very simple why writers are not paid for Internet content. It's actually a very clever formula. The distance to the screen divided by the size of the screen, squared, times two and a half equals shut the (bleep) up.

(Soundbite of laughter)

MASTERS: According to Union rules, Stewart, a Writers Guild member, is not permitted to perform material that was written in advance, even if he wrote it himself. Still, his opening monologue did not seemed entirely unscripted. That point was noted in a little end-of-show banter with Stephen Colbert.

(Soundbite of "The Colbert Report" Show)

Mr. STEPHEN COLBERT (Host, "The Colbert Report"): Jon, I watched some of your show tonight and I'm going to tell you I'm very alarmed by how prepared you seemed.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. COLBERT: I will be making a phone call to the Writers Guild People's Council for the Preservation of the Written Word.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. COLBERT: It will not go unnoted, sir.

Mr. STEWART: Please don't turn me in.

MASTERS: Stewart and Colbert could not return with the help of their writers, unlike David Letterman who returned to his show on January 2nd. Letterman's company Worldwide Pants owns his show and was able to negotiate a settlement with the Writers Guild.

But "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report" are owned by media joint Viacom, which has no intention of cutting a deal with the Union at this point. That didn't stop Stewart from devoting much of his show to the strike.

Colbert spent a bit more time on politics, but like Stewart, he made several references to the strike and his lack of the usual scripted material. And he signed off with this.

(Soundbite of "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart")

Mr. STEWART: Writers, I'll see you in my dream. Goodnight everybody.

(Soundbite of applause)

MASTERS: Jon Stewart's only guest was Ron Seeber, a labor professor from Cornell University. Stewart asked him a question that he's been on many minds in Hollywood in recent weeks.

(Soundbite of "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart")

Mr. STEWART: Is this intractable and it literally has gone to the point of they're both dead to each other and it goes on for months now?

Professor RON SEEBER (Associate Dean, School of Industrial and Labor Relations , Cornell University): It's never intractable…

MASTERS: But at this point, the two sides seemed extremely far apart. Yesterday, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced that the Golden Globe Awards show will not be broadcast as planned on Sunday night.

NBC plans to air what is being called an hour-long press conference that evening during which the winners will be announced. That press conference will be televised exclusively by NBC.

In other strike-related news, the Writers Union said it has made a deal with United Artists. The moribund Company that film star Tom Cruise is attempting to revitalize. Since the company is releasing only a trickle of movies, the agreement appeared to represent a modest psychological victory for the writers.

Kim Masters, NPR News.

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