Word sure spreads fast…
Shortly after the announcement came that late-night TV hosts Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien plan to cross picket lines and get back to work by January 2nd amateur comedians got busy.
According to NBC executives, both the network’s website and switchboard were inundated yesterday with material from jokesters around the country trying to peddle their laughs.
Well, as of this morning, the peacock network has this to say to anyone who wants a new job as a late-night TV writer: Keep your jokes to yourself.
Actually, the notice posted on NBC’s website reads as follows:
“NBC cannot accept, consider or pay for any unsolicited creative ideas or materials. If you send something anyway, you waive any claims with respect to your submission. So why send it?”
Got that?
So, don’t bother dusting off your favorite gags or submitting your 5-year-old’s best knock-knock jokes–the network doesn’t want them. Or more accurately, they don’t want to pay for them. The gag order on the proposed late night gag submissions is all about avoiding lawsuits regarding copyright infringement.
Now, to clarify a comment I made in my previous blog about Leno and O’Brien contributing material to their own shows while their writing staff continues to strike. Johnny Carson did it in 1988, when he similarly returned to the air after two months off during a writers’ strike then. Carson worked without writers and wrote his own material for three weeks, then reached a separate deal with the union to bring his staff back. However, Carson was not a member of the Writers Guild of America unlike Leno and O’Brien. For that and other practical reasons, NBC’s reigning men of laughs may be forced to rely on other means to fill time.
Producers with Leno and O’Brien’s programs say it’s still unclear whether the respective hosts will open their shows with a traditional monologue. Another quandary facing the returning hosts—-according to NBC executives, many potential guests have privately expressed a reluctance to cross picket lines to appear on the late-night shows. As of today neither of the programs has announced any bookings for their returns.
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