By Mark Casey
For people who hadn’t already heard of the labor dispute in Hollywood, the situation eventually became clear when their favorite shows went off the air. When “Grey’s Anatomy” and “The Office” started showing reruns, the question had to be asked: “Hey, what happened to the TV?”
And for regular viewers of the late night talk shows hosted by David Letterman and Jay Leno, that realization could not have come more swiftly or starkly, as the shows’ always topical humor and guest appearances suddenly became 6 months old, their reruns beginning long before any other shows — the very moment the writers went on strike.
But starting this week, the late night gang was back, with Letterman even sporting a “strike beard” — a beard he’d grown by not shaving for the duration of his show’s absence — showing his lighthearted support for the striking Writers Guild of America.
Don’t take it as a sign that the strike is over, however. The WGA is still in heated negotiations with the producers union to get a larger share of the now-massive income from DVD sales, and any share at all from online media, for which they currently get nothing.
Letterman is the first and only producer to have broken from his union to forge an individual deal with the WGA, which is itself a severe blow to the producers, who have claimed all along that a fair deal for the writers is an impossible dream. Letterman, who has the freedom to negotiate on his own because he, rather than CBS, owns his show, came up with a deal in a matter of weeks.
Leno, on the other hand, has acted as little more than a Union Buster on behalf of his network, NBC. Maybe he just can’t grow as full a beard as his counterparts Letterman and Conan O’Brian, both of whom are sporting strike beards, but he has other shortcomings as well.
When the strike began, the producers attempted an ill-conceived strategy to pressure the writers by refusing to pay workers not involved in, but still effected by the strike — the cameramen, sound guys, and food service workers.
Letterman and Conan assured their staffers that their salaries would continue to be paid out of the hosts’ own pockets. Leno had no plans to support his staff until he began to get hassled about it by reporters.
While Letterman has a deal — and his writers — in place, Leno is working behind a picket line with no writers. This causes a problem for many would-be guests, who refuse to cross a picket line even to support their new film or go to an awards show.
But it’s apparently not a problem for presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who appeared on Leno’s first episode back, each of them wearing their American flag lapel pins, each of them undermining support for an entire industry of hardworking, non-famous Americans.
When it was suggested to Huckabee later that perhaps his appearance on the show while strikers were still picketing was a bad move, he indicated that he had no idea there was a picket line, or perhaps even a strike.
This, from the man who had no idea that Iran had halted its nuclear program, or that Pakistan had been taken out of martial law. A man who does not believe in evolution. Like President Bush, Huckabee not only seems remarkably uninformed about key issues, but apparently makes being uninformed a matter of principle.
So Mike Huckabee either doesn’t know or doesn’t care about the writer’s strike. And that will be the case for every guest on Leno’s show, hosted by a man who knows but doesn’t care about his employees.
Such is the case with all labor disputes. There are ultimately two groups — those who care about the situation, and those who don’t.
Letterman has shown that a fair deal can get done quickly. And justly, he discusses the situation endlessly on his show.
Whether the producers, and the public, will care — that remains to be seen.
— Mark Casey is a freelance writer from Brownsburg and winner of the Flyer Idol competition.
