Uma...Oprah...Whatever

Now that the writers have denied both the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards their services for the big broadcast nights, you have to wonder how those shows might muddle through.

It's hard enough to keep these telecasts fresh even with the services of some of the best writing talent in the business. (Though if you want to know what can still go wrong from putting your faith in writers when you're alone at the podium in front of hundreds of millions of viewers, David Letterman's infamous "Uma...Oprah..." bit from the 1995 ceremony stands as evidence. His show runner Rob Burnett manfully took the hit for that when we spoke afterwards: "Completely, 100 percent my fault --I'm the guy. I should be out of show business. It keeps me up at night.")

Letterman and Burnett were in the news this week as they prepared to come back to work with a probable waiver from the Writers Guild (even as Letterman continued doling out heroic sums of money to keep his Worldwide Pants staff paid and quartered.)

Jon Stewart, who is booked to return on February 24 after a variably reviewed 2006 performance ("Come on," he found himself pleading with the sometimes unresponsive Kodak Theater audience, "This is good stuff."), like Letterman, normally would have the opportunity to bring his cadre of top writers to the hall. He had fair warning both of his return to the podium and the strike, so perhaps he's already commissioned --or cooked up on his own (the guy is naturally sharp and began in show biz as a stand-up) a line that can match up to his 2006 opener, "Tonight is the night we celebrate excellence in film, with me, fourth male lead from Death to Smoochy. (Dave had Cabin Boy).

Anticipating the `06 show, the East coaster told an interviewer, "If I had to go out there and surf, that would be a problem," Stewart says. "But you know, it's just comedy."

Welcome to the big waves, Jon. (Stewart has declined comment on the issue thus far.)

Here's what Ellen DeGeneres had to say in anticipation of her 2007 appearance:

I'm doing what I always do for awards shows -- working with my writers for the show. They'll submit something and I'll narrow it, or I'll say, "Let's try to expand on this." About a month and a half ago, I wrote the entire monologue and I thought it was done and set. Then I threw it out the next day. Every time it's great, the closer we get, you say there's no need in settling. So we'll be writing that night. That is the fun of going live, the challenge of what we come back with when something spontaneous happens. We'll be writing right up till show time.

Perhaps more to the point than what happens inside the hall, if both shows end up being broadcast, is what would happen outside where picket lines would almost surely be deployed, per WGA head Patric Verrone's reported suggestion at Monday's guild membership meeting. The 65th annual Globes event, scheduled to air on NBC on January 13th, would be easier for the acting talent and the industry as a whole to boycott--it's a fun, televised booze-up and a nice promotional opportunity, but simply doesn't have the pedigree or the clout of the Oscars.

Although the WGA's denial of film clips for the 80th Annual Academy Awards (slated to air on ABC) seemed like only a partial roadblock, it soon became evident that they were prepared to derail the rest of the ceremony. The wisecracking, sometimes painful repartee between presenters is written to match individual stars' personalities. As Vilanch told an AP reporter, some shows employ a dozen or more writers, starting "a couple months" before show time and continuing until the telecast ends:

You're responding to what happens during the course of the show, so there's writing going on all evening long-- [with writers supplying] anything basically except an acceptance speech.

If it ain't on the page, it ain't on the stage. The contribution the writers make is the same contribution every other creative element makes. It's important.

There might be a show where people just kind of come out and read the names and give the awards, and in between you have some lovely production numbers," he said. "I bet choreographers are just champing at the bit.

When an AFTRA strike threatened the Oscar back in 1967, writing wasn't the key issue and a settlement three hours before the show was due to air saved the day. In the 1988 writers' strike, most of the crucial material had been written before, with the writers given license to ad lib, if not craft new bits.

In 2006, Stewart quipped, "Raise your hand if you were not in Crash." This year, given the present gulf between the warring strike factions, the Oscar producers may be asking for a show of hands from those who are neither in, nor in support of, the Writers Guild.

Meanwhile the WGA is going out of its way to entertain its constituency (and nettle the AMPTP). Today's multi-location extravaganza was an almost "I Love Lucy-style set-up, as described by the WGA's release:

Striking Writers Give AMPTP Opportunity to "Cop A Plea"

Crime and Police Show Writers Rally in Los Angeles and New York

Los Angeles - The "Criminal Writing Division" of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) today announced a three-count Bill of Indictment against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) and eight unnamed co-conspirators.The indictments were hand-delivered to AMPTP headquarters in Encino, California and in Foley Square in Manhattan, surrounded by federal and state courthouses. They were also delivered to the main offices of the "co-conspirators" on both coasts. These locations were declared "crime scenes" by the Criminal Writing Division.

The AMPTP came back with a release themed to the awards boycott:

December 18, 2007

In the category of Worst Supporting Union, the nominee is the WGA. The union, which initiated this strike, continues day in and day out to make good on its commitment to, in the words of a leading WGA organizer, "wreak havoc," even though those being hurt include WGA's own working writers, the below-the-line workers and their families, the broader Los Angeles region - and now the creative artists who deserve to be honored for their work over the last year.

As with their "Open Letter" of a day earlier, the alliance managed to sound priggish despite the heft underlying their key point--the industry's workers are feeling more and more bitter about being off the job and out of the money. (Yet the release calling attention to a Wednesday morning Los Angeles City Council meeting on the strike's economic impact was circulated by the WGA, in line with their thesis that the companies are staying away from the bargaining table as as a ploy.)

Among the not so robust signs of hope were: WGA president Patric Verrone's carefully distancing himself from his earlier insistence that reality TV would remain a key tenet of the negotiation; the Directors Guild beginning meetings with an association of talent agents to develop a sense of what internet revenue would ultimately mean; and the widely held notion that the companies would be a lot more tractable once the stalemate is six weeks old and the use of force majeure provisions, enabling them to snuff any dead wood deals on their lots, would be fully in effect. Such factors, along with a generalized fatigue, have led some to be hopeful of a settlement some time in January. But for now, the moguls are getting ready to head off to their exotic retreats and claim the tans and bragging rights that will hold them in good stead in the new year.

(Jon Stewart hosts the 2006 Oscars;photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)