Posted by Meghan Daum (208.122.38.116) on January 07, 2008 at 10:38:59:
In hopes of learning the true -- and possibly mystical -- value of
writers, I did something Wednesday I hadn't done in years. I watched the
"Late Show With David Letterman" and "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno"
all the way through (thanks to DVR technology). The occasion, of course,
was the programs' return to the air after two months off because of the
ongoing Writers Guild of America strike.
For those who, like Leno's guest that night, Mike Huckabee, are confused
about how this was negotiated, let me be the umpteenth person to remind
everyone that Letterman, whose production company owns his show and made
an independent deal with the WGA, got his writers back. Leno, who
quipped that he was "one man against the monolith," was on his own.
Even though three other late-night hosts were also just back to work,
this was an opportunity to view the two emperors of late-night TV -- one
clothed, the other naked without even a single WGA-sanctioned one-liner
for a fig leaf. It would, I thought, explain why so many of these
writers are Ivy League graduates who could be inventing revolutionary
software had they not chosen to follow their muses and write jokes about
celebrities in rehab. Surely the difference between the two shows would
prove that late-night TV writers, while perhaps not as essential to society as emergency room doctors or really good drivers' ed teachers,
add value if for no other reason than they keep their bosses from
looking like idiots. (Insert perfunctory vice president joke here, which
I'll skip out of solidarity with the striking writers.)
So imagine my surprise and disenchantment when Leno, whose writers' room
is now ostensibly being used for storing untapped Arrowhead water jugs,
was considerably funnier than a fully staffed Letterman. Of course,
that's a matter of opinion (and, in mine, Letterman's reliance on
sounding ironic rather than being ironic got old about the time Spam
T-shirts -- the Hormel product, not the e-mail -- went mainstream) but
the ratings concurred. Nielsen Media Research reported Thursday that
Leno drew 5.8 million viewers versus Letterman's 4.7 million.
Although Leno joked that there were "more people picketing NBC now than
watching NBC," Letterman's line, "I hear you at home thinking to
yourself, 'This crap is written?' " was more than just self-defense in
the form of self-effacement. It was a discomfiting indication of the way
lots of people feel about writers, especially the well-paid kind.
Unlike brain surgery or glass blowing, writing, at least the physical
act of it, is something pretty much everyone can do. As a result, those
who write professionally, particularly those whose lines are delivered
by famous personalities under the guise of ad-libbing, can sometimes be
seen as expendable. And even though many of us like to think we know
better, the fact that Leno's army of one managed to out-muscle
Letterman's well-supported troops wasn't, at least at first glance, the
best advertisement for the writing industry.
But by Thursday, news had broken of a dispute over Leno's monologue. The
guild claims that Leno, as a WGA member, wasn't supposed to be writing
any material, even for himself (the presumption being that the monologue
would be largely ad-libbed). Leno, who is making no pretense of having
improvised anything, is saying the guild rules allow it. "We are
following the guild thing -- we can write for ourselves," he said on the
air Wednesday, adding that the experience was reminiscent of his early
stand-up days when he'd wake his wife at night to ask if a joke was
funny. On Thursday night, Leno made no mention of the controversy.
It should be said that two of the three other late-night hosts who also
reappeared that night -- Conan O'Brien and Jimmy Kimmel -- are presumed
to be improvising their monologues. The third, Craig Ferguson, whose
"Late Late Show" is produced by Letterman's company, brought back his
writers. (Carson Daly has been back, sans scribes, for the last month.)
Lest anyone accuse him of cheating, O'Brien passed the time by seeing
how long he could spin his wedding ring on his desk. Kimmel, for his part, admitted that he wasn't allowed to write but tossed out a bit of
drollery about being the father of Jamie Lynn Spears' child -- no pen or
paper required, one would hope.
Leno's ignorance -- or willful misunderstanding -- of the rules may seem
on the surface like an insult to the guild and its writers, but in some
ways it might actually have constituted the ultimate form of respect. By
refusing to get on stage and simply wing it, Leno honored writers by
honoring not just the business of writing, but the craft of it.
Moreover, by making it clear that he had written the jokes ahead of time
(are we really supposed to believe that detail accidentally slipped
out?), he appeared also to be saying something about the true nature of
"unscripted" television: There's no such thing.
In doing so, Leno reminded us that writers are as important as ER
doctors. After all, being on stage with nothing to say qualifies as an
emergency.