TVSquad

If you're like me, the last two weeks of Late Show reruns have driven you crazy. I actually get a little bummed out when the late night shows are in repeats, especially Letterman's show. Letterman is always the great bookend to my day. I can always count on him to entertain me before I go to bed, to make me laugh. But he has been in repeats for the past two weeks (not just one, but two!) and it's been lame. I mean, if they had older repeats from two, four, six, ten years ago, that would be cool (we've talked about this here several times before), but it's always repeats from a few weeks ago and that's just tedious.

So, to hold us over until new episodes of The Late Show start this Monday, a few videos from Letterman's past. The first one is from the Jacksons Variety Show in 1977 and features Dave with Michael Jackson!

As the strike lingers on and the Writers Guild of American (WGA) and Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) seem no closer to bridging their philosophical and monetary gap, the WGA is set to try a new tactic. According to Variety, the WGA is going to make a "legal demand" today for individual members of the AMPTP to schedule bargaining meetings with the WGA. However, at this point it isn't clear if the companies are legally obligated to do so, and if not, will they?

Looks like the late-night talk shows may be coming back sooner rather than later, and this regardless of what happens with the strike. Variety admits that nothing official has been said and no one will comment one way or another, but insiders are saying the time may be nearing. Carson returned after two months of the '88 writers strike. With ratings taking a nosedive, January 7 has been pegged as a possible return date for the NBC hosts (Leno and O'Brien), with the others starting the same time or soon thereafter.

They initially shut down production in deference to their writers and stayed dark to help the writers maintain some leverage in negotiations, even going so far as to pay non-writing staffers out of their own pockets. But, when reruns of Spike TVs MANswers are beating your reruns, and your ratings are half what they were (as is the case with the NBC pair), it's time to rethink everything.

As of next week, The New York Times reports that NBC executives will have to start laying off the non-writing staff on Late Night With Conan O'Brien. The studio had been paying their salaries thus far through the strike. As such, Conan has stepped up and agreed to start paying his non-striking staff their full wages on Monday from his own pocket, if necessary. Word of this leaked to the press, with no official comments being offered by any side.

This is a very different response to the ongoing labor stoppage than Ellen DeGeneres and Carson Daly, who have both resumed production on their respective shows. With ratings down significantly in late night, studios are under increasing pressure to bring these shows back on the air, so I'm guessing there's increasing pressure on these guys to come back in. O'Brien instead is showing his support for the strike as well as his staff by putting his money where his mouth is.

The blog The Top Socialite has posted what the author believes were the 12 craziest moments from the Letterman Show (both the NBC and CBS versions). I'm not certain exactly what criteria the author uses, but some of the segments are pretty damn funny and show Dave in his talented prime.

It's interesting to note that two of these segments made it to major motion pictures. The scene with Andy Kaufman throwing the coffee on Jerry Lawler was in Man On The Moon starring Jim Carrey and the segment with Harvey Pekar appeared in American Splendor (it appeared in the comic book too).

A sketch has surfaced over at FunnyorDie.com starring Conan O'Brien. It appears to be a sketch from the Saturday Night Live episode that he hosted in 2001. The sketch was cut from the live airing of the show and hasn't been seen until now.

While watching the sketch you get the feeling that it was something that he always wanted to do on his own show but could never fit it in. The premise is pure Late Night but the sketch is way too long and too involved to have worked on a talk show.

B.J. Porter and Scott Aukerman of Mr. Show and the weekly Comedy Death Ray showcase in Los Angeles are developing a new late night comedy series for FOX. The new sketch comedy series, according to Aukerman, is based somewhat on the Comedy Death Ray shows and is called The Right Now! Show.