No more votes, no more deadlines, no more contracts, no more writers.
The Writers Guild of America is set to strike, maybe as early as Monday. The WGA negotiation board made a unanimous recommendation to stop writing in response to failed contract negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.
The fight was over residuals on DVD residuals; currently writers receive less than a nickel for each disc sold, and want to double that rate for any DVD with more than $1 million in wholesale revenue. CONTINUED »
Whether Lewis Black will be out to beat the number of times he says "fuck" during an on-stage gig when he performs Nov. 7 at Stand Up for Heroes, a benefit hosted by the Bob Woodruff Family Fund. Conan O'Brien will be MCing, or, more likely, restraining Black.
We're used to seeing Mary-Kate Olsen hovered over a grande latte and guarding her face with an oversized Chanel "tote." But she hobbled her way over to Conan O'Brien's show to plug her upcoming debut on Showtime's Weeds and, in a world exclusive, announced she was pregnant. Except she was kidding. So the world exclusive was that there was a sense of humor hiding between those bones and ligaments.
Remember all that talk about NBC ushering out Jay Leno to make room for the younger, hipper up-and-comer Conan O'Brien? Well, in a blatant attempt to prove he doesn't need the Kevin Eubanks laughtrack, Leno hit the Cali nightclubs with the best fat-joke we've heard since "yo' mama's so fat, her blood type is RAGU."
Writes Popbitch:
Jay Leno likes to try out his TV jokes each week at the Comedy and Magic club, Hermosa Beach, California. Last Sunday he started with his standard family entertainment routine, but then suddenly launched into a rant about how fat Americans have become. He ended up telling a story about a kid who was "so fat it would take Michael Jackson an hour to molest him."
Oh, snap! Don't listen to those over-the-hill execs – when you've got it, you've got it. And who cares if Jay's so old that his social security number is one—and he owes Jesus a quarter?
In addition to forcing 1,000 of its least employees to ride the Bauer bus of shame every morning, NBC is also struggling with another potentially sticky situation, namely how to placate the longtime host of The Tonight Show after his semi-voluntary retirement in 2009.
And so far, NBC's ideas about how to retain their hold on the late night mainstay (and prevent him from jumping to a rival network) are about as creative as their primetime Fall schedule, which is to say underwhelming.
Meanwhile, while network execs wrestle with the problem of keeping Leno happy (after "prodding" him to step down before he was entirely ready) they also have to ensure that his replacement, Conan O'Brien makes a smooth transition, meaning they'll need to devise a way for O'Brien to attract a wider audience (Leno's median viewer is 52 years young) while still retaining his firm hold on the "unmotivated twenty-something year old pothead" demographic.
With Jon Stewart's contract with The Daily Show up in 2008, it's only a matter of time before the (fairly lucrative) offers start pouring in. And Jeff Zucker is the first to toss his hat into the ring, wooing Stewart with a romantic dinner, an NBC tote bag and, potentially, an offer to take over Conan O'Brien's soon-to-be former job as host of Late Night.
NBC Universal President/Chief Executive Jeff Zucker and NBC Entertainment/Universal Media Studios Co-Chair Marc Graboff recently wined and dined the satirical news anchor and his agent, James Dixon.
According to a network source, Zucker and Graboff didn’t focus on pitching any specific role at the dinner meeting. “They just made their interest known in finding a way to do business together if Jon was ever available,” says the source, who categorized the talks as “exploratory.”
From Tuesday night's Conan:
How could Charlie Gibson be encroaching on this man?
Well, at least it lasted longer than Emily's Reasons Why Not. Andy Richter – one-time Conan O'Brien sidekick-cum-O'Brien producing partner – has lost yet another well-received-by-critics-but-not-viewers sitcom, with NBC yanking Andy Barker, P.I. after just four episodes. Two more, already-produced episodes will air Saturday night.
Critics might point to the lowly 4.2 million viewers who tuned in during the show's Thursday 9:30pm time slot as the reason for yank. Us? Those two guys on Pysch are about the only comedic detectives-by-accident we can take.
• Grey's Anatomy's Isaiah Washington has a pattern of being an asshole. [TMZ]
• O.J. Simpson's camp denies he's paying paid anything, let alone $3.5 million, to write a book. Still mum on that whole double murder thing. [R&M]
• Conan O'Brien's L.A. house hunting don't help rumors that NBC is forcing him to head west when he takes over Jay Leno's late night timeslot. [Planet Gossip]
• Anna Nicole Smith's half-sister Donna Hogan hopes to cash in on Anna's fame with new book. Also, blames Anna for son Daniel's death. [R&M]
• Warner Brothers made empty promises to fit the amputee extras in the studio's Blood Diamonds with prosthetic limbs, following trend of making empty promises about the bottom line to investors. [P6]
• The baby daddy of Madonna's adoption hopeful says he wasn't aware the pop singer would be taking away his son David forever. [NYDN]
That was a clever little Emmy intro Conan O'Brien had last night, huh? Incorporating Emmy embarrassment Lost, popping in on The Office, interrupting a 24 call, having Hugh Laurie resurrect his House role before the fall season kicks off, showing up with Tom Cruise for an animated South Park snippet, and popping in on Chris Hansen's To Catch a Predator child porn kitchen — all very creative and amusing stuff. Of course the entire plot sequence kicked off with his flight to L.A. going down, which would've been a wildly entertaining lead in to this flat Mel Gibson joke, if it weren't for this bit of breaking news yesterday:
49 Die in Kentucky Crash as Jet Takes Off From Wrong Runway [Ian Urbina and Amanda Van Benschoten, NYT]
• Nicole Richie found a boyfriend to carry her around the beach when her legs give out. [Us]
• Breaking News: Women who have to juggle careers and a house and kids with no help from their husbands are miserable. [Forbes]
• We'll just let Opinionistas handle it this time. [Opinionistas]
• Conan O'Brien will return to host the Emmys. Expect plenty of unoffensive and awkward humor. [AP]
• Look for Britney Spears in the $.99 bin, along with doubles of all of Sean Preston's clothes. [TMZ]
• Stuyvesant High School gets a special treat: the funniest man on late night giving them very little hope for the future. [FBNY]
• Redbull is coming to Soho. Silicon Alley bloggers rejoice. [NYO]
• The New York Post spruces up it's coverage of death with fun, rhyming headlines. Oh, and the UES builiding bomber guy is dead. [NYP]
• Travel + Leisure strikes a huge blow against Andre Balazs. Apparently cities where there is space for hotels is where all the good ones actually are. [T+L]
• Adrian Grenier was in Williamsburg back when people admitted to living there. [You Tube]
• Who knew contemplating Tom Hanks' hair could be so fun? Anyways, we're just sick of hearing about his damn movie. [The Jay]
• In case your numbers are dropping (and we're not talking about cholesterol) here are some words of wisdom from Star EIC Joe Dolce to help you move on by. [NYP]
• Today, Blogebrity learns how to feed itself cheerios and say its first sentence. We bet it was "we got so many links today, yo." Yes, they are very very bright. [Blogebrity]
• We know it's like 5 months away, but Conan O'Brien will host the Emmy awards. Which means he's probably not nominated. [emmys.com]
• Charlie Sheen's publicist is going to commit suicide any day now. [Defamer]
With all they hype over Stephen Colbert making fun of the president, it seems all the other people who make fun of him have been unfairly brushed aside.
Evidently, late night comedians have made 307 jokes at George W. Bush's expense so far this year — over 100 more than were made during the same three month period of 2005 (197). Yes, the Center for Media and Public affairs have tracked the ramblings of Jay Leno, David Letterman, and Conan O'Brien. The conclusion? Everyone is making an effort to shame Dubya to the public.
"Bush's numbers in public approval polls may be sinking consistently, but he's never been more popular with the late-night hosts," said Robert Lichter, the center's president.
Most of the jokes are about Bush's intelligence, rather than his policies, the center said.
Yeah. You know you're popular when cool kids call you a dumb fuck about 100 times a month.
Late-night comics target Bush [AP News]
• Former Guided By Voices frontman Robart Pollard announces his break from "retirement", with tour dates starting in January. Now you can watch him perform his little ass off before he quits the scene forever. Again. [Billboard ]
• We know the crazy Brits call soccer "football", but now they are overplaying the pastime of throwing beer bottles during Oasis concerts. [NME]
• Conan O'Brien will have the apple of New York's eye Clap Your Hands Say Yeah on his show tonight. So you can cancel the trip to the South By Southwest festival. [Spin, NBC]
• Hey, you know who all the cool kids wanna be? Depeche Mode's Dave Gahan. [Blender]
• Don't deny it. We know you were wondering what the right-wing baptists listed on their top forty this year. Here's a clue: Kanye wasn't included. [Christian Science Monitor
Is it any surprise Martha Stewart's not exactly pulling in stellar ratings for NBC (at least her Apprentice, anyhow) when she's just a couple weeks into her talk show Martha and already devoting an entire show to redheads?
At least Conan O'Brien bothered to show.
As did Martha's hairstylist Eva Scrivo, though we're only mentioning her because we actually go to the Eva Scrivo Salon and, well, we might get something free out of it, like a comp'd cut (and color, and deep conditioning, and scalp massage ..).
Editorial Director
