Mary McNamara’s snide and unfunny “Television Review” in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times shows that the editorial staff there must be in a bit of a fix: how can you be anti-Jay Leno, and anti-Writers Guild, when the Guild appears to be anti-Jay?
The answer, as always, is pick, pick, pick. Miss Mary Mack goes after Jay for doing an old reference in Monday’s monologue. It was that timeless classic about the recent rains causing the Chia pet he threw out at Christmas to grow so much it blocked his driveway. Forget the fact that Jon Stewart buttoned his first act by calling the Writer’s Strike nine times worse than 9/11. Forget that Jay is intentionally recycling jokes, in an effort to do as little writing as possible (although he IS writing, allowed during the last strike, but under fire now). Jay has the same problem he’s had in the press all along: He’s still number one.
The Guild’s own stance on whether or not Jay is breaking the strike rules (as detailed by John Bowman in Robert Siegel’s interview on January 8th) doesn’t seem to have teeth. The controversy here isn’t whether Jay went back on air (again, the Guild gave him their blessing based on all of his support and public appearances since day 1), rather it is over the difference between the MBA (the previous contract, and the guidelines that the companies continue to follow) that allows late-night hosts to do their own material, and the strike rules, that say the show can go on, but not with any writing. Is it fair for the Guild to have changed the rules after the strike authorization vote? Or is this milquetoast sturm and drang an admonishment to the rest of the writers to Do As We Say, Not As Jay Does?
I know for a fact that none of Jay’s writers are writing anything for him. And that doing his show must be hard without that support. Isn’t that enough? Does he have to be caught in the middle of the Who’s Cooler/Who’s Funnier debate now?
