The Return of Late Night
By Erin Klingensmith
Earlier this month, late night television returned to the airwaves, and most of the programs came back without the aide of writers. Talk show hosts like Jay Leno have been forced to rely on their own comedic abilities instead of a team of professional writers. In the midst of the WGA strike we’ve witnessed the musical styling of Mike Huckabee and an expose on what the stars might have eaten if the golden globes had actually taken place.
Despite odd guess and hit or miss mini-segments, the talk show hosts themselves are just as funny as usual. Who else could we go to for an in depth analysis of ridiculous headlines but Jay Leno? His work exposing the strange world of instant tanning products for infants and parking lot mammograms was missed during the long weeks of the late night hiatus.
Even with the promising return of America’s favorite late night hosts, it is hard not to wonder how long the shows will be able to sustain themselves without writers. After having relied on other people’s material for such a long time, it’s hard not to wonder if the hosts haven’t just gotten lucky this month. With the democratic and republican Caucasus in full swing, the writers’ strike and the seemingly endless train wreck that is Britney Spears, it doesn’t seem like it would be hard to come up with new and interesting material. I just don’t want to see what will happen to late night content on a slow news week.
With the rest of the entertainment industry on standby until studios and the WGA can come up with some sort of compromise, the television-watching American public will have to sustain itself on reruns, late night TV and American Idol. For those of you still depressed in the absence of new episodes of Grey’s Anatomy or Heroes, my suggestion is to read a book and relish the fact that you might have saved yourself a few brain cells.
