TVSquad

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.

With Daughtry, fronted by American Idol alumnus Chris Daughtry, and former Idol winner Carrie Underwood each taking home three trophies at this year's American Music Awards (AMAs), it's clear that the music landscape continues to be shaped by the dominant FOX reality competition. Daughtry, who didn't win his season of AI but has gone on to more commercial success than any of his season's compatriots thus far, picked up awards for favorite pop-rock album, breakthrough album and adult contemporary artist for his band's self-titled debut Daughtry. While Daughtry acknowledged the show's role in his success, as reported on AOL.com, he insists "the show didn't make me who I am. It just gave me a chance to show everybody else who I am."

Underwood, meanwhile, continued her award show success with trophies for favorite female country artist, country album (for Some Hearts) and the T-Mobile text-in award. For the first time in its 35 year history, winners this year were chosen by online voting. With the AMAs being essentially a "popularity contest" it should come as no surprise that two of the most popular artists ever on one of televisions most popular television shows ever would have a good showing.

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).

Paul Shaffer, Late Show band leader, is writing a memoir about his show business career. The book will be out sometime in 2009.

Youngsters recognize Paul as David Letterman's band leader and occasional comic foil, but he actual started as the musical director on Saturday Night Live in the late '70s, appearing in pretty much any sketch that involved muscians, most notably Bill Murray's lounge singer bits.

Shaffer also starred in the short-lived sitcom A Year at the Top, about two musicians from Idaho who travel to Hollywood and are tempted by the devil's son to sell their souls for fame. This should not be confused with Top of the Heap, which was a Married with Children spin-off starring Matt LeBlanc. Also, don't confuse it with Top Cat, that's a Hanna Barbera cartoon.

Well, CBS hasn't posted the clip, but at least one YouTube user has posted Homer Simpson's recent appearance on Late Show with David Letterman. You can watch the clip below.

In the segment, Homer reads his top ten reasons why he should be president. It's pretty funny, though I think it might have worked better if the segment was just Homer rather than skipping back and forth between Homer and Letterman. I think it kind of threw the pacing off a bit. Also, is it just me or did Letterman not seem especially enthused about the whole thing? The combination of "just okay" jokes and Letterman phoning it in kind of brought the whole thing down if you ask me, which you didn't.

A lot of people would say that being the host of your own TV show, especially one that has your very name in the title, would give you a big ego, a big head. Now we have photographic proof.

A company called Floam has created a couple of giant head replicas of David Letterman and his bandleader sidekick Paul Shaffer. They're on display at Toyfair.

This Floam stuff looks pretty wild and cool. It's "micro beaded modeling fun foam" that comes in blue, yellow, green and fluorescent pink and you can use it on a ton of stuff: make animals with it, decorate skateboards, create masks, and, well, just about anything else you can think of. It's like the 21st century version of Silly Putty.

They would probably make a giant Floamhead of Jay Leno, but I think that's against the law and would scare kids.

A little over a month since it launched its own branded channel on YouTube, CBS now boasts some of the highest views on the video sharing site. Since it first began uploading clips on October 18, CBS's content has had almost thirty million views. Currently there are over 300 clips from shows like Late Night with David Letterman, CSI, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, The Early Show and NCIS. Not to mention CBS News programs and sports highlights. CBS believes having their content on YouTube has been a factor in increased ratings of the television broadcasts of these same series.

I have to wonder, though, is this really news? Isn't saying CBS had the most views on YouTube like saying King Kong has a greater vertical leap than Bonzo the monkey? I'm all about free access to TV shows --clips and otherwise-- on the Web, but while CBS congratulates itself on being a corporation with the power to saturate YouTube, is there some great independent content being pushed further into the background? It seems impossible to have the best of both worlds.

If you missed Michael Richards' appearance on Letterman's show last night after his racist tirade at a comedy club in West Hollywood, CBS' Late Show Web site has the video, which you can see here.

Setting aside Richards' racial slurs aside for a moment, watching the video of his onstage meltdown made me think of the kind of heated exchanges people get into where one becomes so enraged they reach deep into their reserves for the ultimate atomic bomb of an insult, the one word or phrase they can say that will completely flatten the person who is attacking them, and in Richard's case his racist comments . During his appearance on Letterman's show, Richards acknowledged that he lost his temper, and it seems fairly obvious to me that whatever self-censoring mechanism he had was overrode by his need to take down the people who were heckling him.

If you're like me and don't tune into watch David Letterman much anymore, I've placed the video of Bill O'Reilly's latest appearance on The Late Show after the jump. I have no interest in taking sides in this particular debate, but I think what is clear is that as angry or annoyed as Dave seems, he loves to have someone on like O'Reilly who he can argue with rather than just lob softballs at some starlet who is there to promote her next movie. Dave's been doing this for far too long and he lives for these moments. O'Reilly isn't one to back down from a challenge, either, and despite their disagreements, the two of them are actually a perfect match. Unfortunately, the clip gets cut off at the end, and I couldn't find another one on YouTube. If anyone knows where a full clip can be found, let me know and I'll replace this one.

Full clip here. Thanks, Kristie.