Judging from the ratings, not a lot of you are watching the hoary reruns of The Tonight Show at NBC, for some reason, is showing while Mr. Leno and his writers are on strike. Last night, it was a show from January of '96 and the lead guest was Chris Farley, who was either coked-up or might as well have been. Back when we could pretend his excesses weren't likely to kill him — he died in December of the following year — Farley seemed like a very funny, lovable boy. It's a little harder to see him that way now.
I find the old shows fascinating in their way but I'm not surprised America doesn't want to watch jokes — there was one on Tuesday's rerun — about how President Bill Clinton wasn't likely to get elected to a second term. It's interesting to see what passed for Current Events back then and also to see what Leno's show was like back then before he decided, for example, to stop trying to do characters in sketches.
More interesting to me would be to know what was on the mind of whoever decided that during the strike, they'd dip back into the days when Leno's hair was just going charcoal, and he was doing shows that he never wanted to have rerun. They're not making audiences happy and I doubt Jay is thrilled about them. So how come they're not dumping that approach and doing what Letterman's doing, which is to dig back no farther than last year, even if it means running some episodes for the third time?
This annoys me. We're on stormwatch here in Los Angeles and at the moment, it doesn't look like that big a storm. But you wouldn't know that from the L.A. Times. Here's the lead paragraph from an article they put up at 9:06 AM...
A significant rainstorm is expected to barrel into Southern California late today, dumping up to 3 inches of rain over two days and prompting the National Weather Service to issue flash-flood warnings.
And then later on in the article, it says...
The rains, which could range from 1 to 3 inches from downtown L.A. to the mountains, are expected to bring a considerable snowpack — with up to a foot of snow at elevations above 7,000 feet.
At least an inch of rain in downtown Los Angeles? Up to three inches? That's what they're suggesting but that's not what the National Weather Service — the article's only source for forecasts — is actually saying. This is from the 5:30 AM Special Weather Statement from the NWS, which as of this moment is still their official forecast...
General rainfall amounts are expected to range between one half and one inch across coastal and valley locations...with locally higher
amounts possible across Los Angeles County and areas near heavier showers or thunderstorms. Most foothill and mountain areas can expect between one and three inches of rain...with highest amounts expected on the south facing slopes of the San Gabriel range.
1-3 inches of rain in the mountains is not uncommon from a storm that drops a third of that in the L.A. basin. Flash-flood warnings in mountainous areas that have recently burned are also pretty standard even with a weak storm. It looks to me like the forecast is really for a half-inch to an inch across most of L.A. and 1-3 inches in the surrounding mountains, especially the San Gabriel mountains, where the topography doesn't have a lot to do with what we commonly think of as Los Angeles. It could be seventy degrees where I am and snowing on those hilltops.
But the point is that there's a big difference between a half-inch to an inch of rain in the flatlands and 1-3 inches. This storm may do some damage and it may even be bigger than the National Weather Service is predicting. But their current forecast is being misrepresented here. I wish people wouldn't do that.
At the convention in New York a few weeks ago, I got to meet a lot of folks I previously knew only via e-mails and weblogs. One was Clifford Meth, who has become an important presence in publishing these days, especially working with a new firm called IDW. He has a new project coming out this month called Snaked, described as a "noir horror story." I've liked what I've read of Meth's work and the fact that he started developing this one with our mutual friend, the late Dave Cockrum, makes it especially intriguing. The art is by Rufus Dayglo, who's been working for 2000 AD, mostly on the Judge Dredd strip, so I'm going to keep an eye out for this one. Maybe you should, too.
Fred Kaplan on what should happen next with Iran. And I also think that a good indicator of what's going to happen there would be to watch and see when David Letterman starts booking new guests. Especially if he has Regis on.
The most interesting things currently going on with our favorite topic — the strike — are the reports (like this one) that the member companies of the AMPTP are not quite all on the same page with regard to how long they're prepared to take a hard line and not give the WGA enough of what it wants. In '88, as that work stoppage slogged on, we heard increasingly that this company or that one was eager — in some cases, almost desperate — to settle but that "The Monolith of Management" was holding together via its own internal pressures. And of course it stands to reason that, just as not all writers are being hurt equally by the strike, not all networks and production companies are looking at equivalent losses.
The other day, I heard someone compare it to Tournament Blackjack, which happens to be a game I've been studying lately. In Tournament Blackjack, as opposed to regular Blackjack, all the players simultaneously play against the House but more importantly, they play against each other so it's possible to gain by losing. If I'm playing against you and the dealer beats us both, we both lose our wagers...but if you've bet more than I have on the hand, you lose more than I do. So I gain on you or even pull ahead of you. You can lose every hand in a Tournament Blackjack competition and still win the game because you bet small.
So it is with a strike like this. Some of the studios are being hurt less by the strike so they're gaining a competitive advantage on the others. No one could reasonably expect that Sony or Universal is going to break away from the Alliance and cut a separate deal with the WGA...but someone in their internal meetings is more anxious to end the strike than someone else.
Yesterday in this space, we told you that the WGA wasn't going to settle this thing without addressing some of the issues that don't relate directly to dollars and cents...and sure enough, yesterday in the bargaining sessions, our team presented demands for the Guild to expand jurisdiction over so-called "reality" or "writerless" shows. Tomorrow, at about the hour the National Weather Service says it'll stop raining in L.A., there's a big rally out in Burbank outside the office of one of the main companies that produces such shows.
(By the way: I noted that the rally was near the Bob's Big Boy restaurant in Burbank, which is where one can often find Drew Carey dining, and I mentioned the rumor that he owns the place. I am informed that he does not, but that he may have set up some sort of running tab there, whereby he pays for the meals of any diner who flashes a WGA card. Check before you assume that's true. Mr. Carey does apparently own Swingers, which is a coffee shop near CBS Television City that is feeding WGA members for free.)
No new predictions on how long this thing's gonna last but the more I think of it, the more I think the best indicator that it's close to ending will be David Letterman. The late night shows are taking a bad hit during this strike and they'll rush back into production as soon as the picket lines go down. Jay Leno's having all sorts of problems with NBC that relate to his future, or possible lack of one at that network. Dave's going to hit the ground at full sprint to get back up and running — that's one of the reasons he's paying his staff to keep working. So the second it looks like there's an end date for the strike, CBS exec Les Moonves, who's in the thick of the negotiations, will surely alert Mr. Letterman. When we hear that Dave is lining up a real guest list for even a tentative resumption of tapings, that's when I'll start believing the rumors that the strike is near settlement. Not before.
December 7, 2007
