Writer's Strike? Who Can Tell?

Coupla weeks ago when the writer's strike begain I wondered to myself why did the late night shows hafta shut down? Leno/Letterman/Conan et al - aren't these men supposed to be funny on their own merits anyways? Are you telling me each one of them can't walk out in front of an audience and entertain for an hour? Then I figured well, this must be a loyalty thing, a union tie by association thing and let it go. Now I see all of them are trickling back, looking to do the show without their writers. Which is fine with me....late night "comedy" shows have become fucking dreadful, haven't they? Let's see:

- come out and do current events monologue. Paris Hilton? check. Bush is dumb? Check. OJ, Clinton, Anna Nicole, check check check. Boy, that was tough.

- commercial

- perform various "sketches" for our enjoyment. These don't even hafta be actually funny - in fact if they flop it's even better, you get to look self-deprecating while bashing NBC or CBS or whomever, as if they're "The Man" and you're some scrapper with a shoestring budget just trying to do jokes.

- Insert current hot movie star here. "How do you like LA? Really? Wow! Hey, lets look at a clip of your movie! You're incredible!!!!"

- commercial

- Insert current hot movie star here. "How do you like NY? Really? Wow! Hey, lets look at a clip of your movie! You're incredible!!!!"

- commercial

- crappy band performs here. Usually Fall Out Boy. Walk out and shake hands with singer as if you're touching Elvis circa 1956.

Wow. I can see why you'd need writers for that. My buddy Rrthur (yes ladies, THAT Rrthur) and I were watching the Don Rickles doc on HBO the other day and while looking at his old clips with Carson, we were reminded of how loose and funny those shows were. You never knew when an old school buddy of Johnny's would just pop in, and off they'd go trying to kill each other on the couch. How many times did you watch back then when at the end of the show Johnny would apologize for so and so having been bumped? Sorry, Dean Martin just ambled in smoking and drinking. Wouldn't you rather it be that way anyways? Would you rather sit there while say, Will Smith, makes his regular appreance like clockwork ("I have a movie coming out on Friday") spouting the same old shit over and over or...ANYthing else? Fucking christ. I'd rather watch Conan sit there talking to his maid for half an hour knowing that at any second Jeffrey Ross could come rolling in half in the bag. Not just to fucking promote whatever's next in the pipeline, not to announce his succesful rehab stint, but just to shoot the shit and be funny.

I don't know the details of the writer's strike. I really don't care. I assume they're fighting earnestly for something they're genuinly owed. But I can't say I would ever miss them and their "craft" on tv. How'd we go from Carson confronting Rickles about his broken cigarette case to such unfunny stiltedness? Will be interesting to see if the current hosts use their appearances "without writers" as opoortunities to really cut loose, or just show up with the same old shit. I got a hunch I already know the answer, unfortunately.