Wednesday was so bomb. Late night programming returned, which was quite a relief because now we don’t have to think about how hopeless our lives are and can just watch celebrity interviews instead.

And when Leno returned on Wednesday, he made a joke about how he was writing his own monologue, which was funny, ha, ha, until the Writers Guild of America was like, “Hey, guess what Mr. Funny? That violates our agreement. You’re no better than Carson Daly.” To which Leno was like, “Do you see how I act with my guests? Where do you think I started?

Even without writers, The Tonight Show is still beating David Letterman's Late Show; Leno's mediocrity is that appealing.

Non-SAG member and presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee appeared on The Tonight Show last night to promote himself. We don’t know about you, but when we think about the kind of person we want representing us to the rest of the world, we think about bass players.

After the jump, Huckabee sort of endorses Barack Obama.

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So unless you were living in a shoe for the past eight weeks, you know that the writers strike has more or less destroyed American entertainment as we know it.

But last night, no longer able to sponsor their cast and crew with their own paychecks, David Letterman, Craig Ferguson, Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien returned. Only Letterman and Ferguson had the help of their writers; only Leno and Ferguson had shaved recently.

Without people on staff to be funny, Leno and O’Brien resorted to self-depreciating jokes about how unfunny they are. To kill time, O’Brien spun his wedding ring on his desk for 36 seconds. Yeah, these two shouldn’t have a problem as the strike continues.

After the jump, the first WGA approved scripted television in eight weeks from The Late Show. Since the clip is from YouTube, neither the writers nor the networks are profiting from this online material. How’s that for a compromise?

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Just a quick FYI: Owning your own production has its benefits. Because David Letterman’s company, Worldwide Pants, made a separate agreement with the Writers Guild of America, the second-rated late night host can have Screen Actors Guild guests without any awkwardness and/or protests from the WGA.

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In what world is a MIT physics professor a big talk show"get"? In the murky waters of the WGA strike, where some late night hosts are returning with their writing staffs, and others without.

The professor is YouTube star Walter H. G. Lewin, who makes physics fun with lively demonstrations; he also happened to be featured in the New York Times, so you know the logic path that followed in bookers' minds.

And if Jay Leno were to get him, that'd be just splendid — since David Letterman's arrangement for Late Night and Craig Ferguson's Late Late Show allows them to return with writers and the blessing of the Screen Actors Guild, which the Times reports "is explicitly directing its members — including every A-list movie and television star — to appear on the CBS shows."

Which isn't sitting well with the Lenos, O'Briens, Stewarts, Colberts, Dalys, and Kimmels of the world. Something about an unfair competitive advantage. Or a growing fear that Jay Leno by himself is, indeed, not funny. Shudder.

STEWART/COLBERT '08 Joining Conan, Leno, Letterman, Ferguson and trail blazer, Carson Daly, Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert will return with new shows, produced without writers, starting January 7. [NYT]

Forget About This Strike Jimmy Kimmel will return live starting January 2 joining Leno and Conan and probably Dave Letterman and Craig Ferguson. Happy New Year, networks! Does this mean Carson Daly was cutting edge? [USAT]

Conan and Leno Are Back, Less Funny Than Ever Conan O'Brien and Jay Leno will have new episodes starting J-2. The shows are returning sans writers, so expect a lot of vapid chit-chat. Looks like NBC's resolution to have new programming for 2008 has worked out. [CNN]

Who would have guessed that a production company with a ridiculous name like World Wide Pants would be in such a plum position?

But since World Wide Pants, not CBS, owns The Late Show With David Letterman and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, both shows are probably going to return with new episodes in January through an interim agreement brokered with the Writers Guild of America.

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Thing are looking good for insomniacs. NBC’s Conan O’Brien and Jay Leno are probably going to return to late night in early January, even if the WGA strike doesn’t get resolved, which it won’t. There’s talk of a joint picket crossing with CBS’s David Letterman and Craig Ferguson. The competing networks have finally found a common enemy: The Struggling writer. [Variety]

Whatev, Got Money For all the talk that late night show hosts are just gesturing by paying their staff through the strike, it's actually costing them an estimated $150,000 to $250,000 a week. In the meantime, CBS and NBC are saving more than $1 million a week by not producing their shows, while still taking in major bank from advertisers on repeats. Looks like this strike thing is really working out.

Jay Leno, what a great guy! The late night host is going to personally pay the salaries of his staff through Christmas. It’s amazing how Carson Daly can cross the picket line and Jay Leno can finance his staff, and they both can still end up looking like tools.

Jay Leno is reportedly reluctant to leave now that he's "at the top of his game." And here we thought a show with canned laughter, predictable punchlines and a devout old-person following was rock bottom. [LAT]

Last night on Leno, Anderson Cooper compared going gray to pre-mature ejaculation. What, then, is going bald like? [Queerty]

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?

We had Lindsay Lohan booked on the show tonight but apparently she was already booked…

It's too bad about Lindsay. I thought our competition was Nightline and Letterman. Turns out it's "Cops" and "America's Most Wanted."

I guess you all heard the story by now. Early this morning, Lindsay Lohan was arrested on suspicion of DUI and possession of cocaine. She told cops she was just researching a role for a movie, in which she will play herself.

Didn't she just leave that rehab center in Malibu called "Promises"? I hope you kept the receipt.

I guess this is like the second time this year she's been arrested. Of course, under L.A. law she could do as much as 72 hours in jail. Let's hope she straightens it out.

–Excerpted from Jay Leno's monologue last night, in a Daily News article cleverly entitled, "Deuce Biga-lohan."

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.

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• Turns out Sarah Silverman's new VMA billboard is almost as annoying as Sarah Silverman.

• Chuck Schumer may have contracted lyme disease. Which is ironic, since he helped champion a bill to allot millions to lyme disease research! Unfortunately for Schumer, that bill was later rejected.

• Leno celebrates his 15th anniversary by reminding us all the he and Letterman actually get along great. As long as they're not speaking or in the same room together.

• Nicole Richie copies Paris' hairstyle, oversized sunglasses, and—judging by the horizontal, black-and-white striped shirt—Paris' prison record.

• What would a blaxsploitation version of Jaws look like? This.

• CBS just renewed Dave Price weatherman gig on The Early Show, and now might be lookin to him for replace Bob Barker on The Price Is Right. Hopefully there's room in the budget, since it's rumored Les Moonves had to pay Barker to retire and get him out of his contract, which required the show go dark for a year after his departure. [P6]

• With no Kitson or D&G at rehab, what's Nicole Richie to do but check out for the day and get a Centurion card workout? [Scoop]

• The Mississippi news producer who booked Borat for an on-air segment is regretting not using a news professional's first line of defense: Google. [Fox 411]

• Jay Leno will leave the Oscar hosting duties to the lesbian. [Planet Gossip]

• Will & Grace creators David Kohan and Max Mutchnick are teaming up for a new sitcom loosely based on their lives: two best friends, both writers, one gay, one straight. And their hot young assistants. Oh, the power to produce a show based on the life you wish you had. [THR]

• When young Hollywood and young socialites pair up, they can't get past the doorman. [P6]

California Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides will not receive the same treatment on The Tonight Show as Jay Leno pal Arnold Schwarzenegger. And by that, we mean "any treatment." Angelides is arguing that NBC owes him some airtime – under public broadcast rules requiring networks to offer equal airtime to political candidates – after the sitting governor got to pal around with Leno for exactly 15 minutes and 41 seconds on Oct. 11. And, given NBC execs' continued insistence that Leno hosts an entertainment program, not a news show (which are exempt from meeting the requirements) Angelides' camp thought their claim might have some weight. But the FCC has abandoned Schwarzenegger's challenger's claim, saying the Tonight Show segment did not qualify as entertainment — and, since it's been letting the likes of Entertainment Tonight pass as news, why on this night should it be different?

In the end, the FCC found it did not need the entire hour and a half of the Tonight Show to be qualified as "news" for conclude the Schwarzenegger interview segment was indeed a news interview. Good thing, too, because otherwise we'd have many an animal trainer demanding equal airtime, too.

FCC Upholds Tonight News Exemption [John Eggerton, B&C]