Sunday, January 06, 2008

Leno & Kimmel's dangerous liaison


Passive-aggressive late night TV host Jay Leno and Sarah Silverman's boyfriend/Adam Carolla's mentor Jimmy Kimmel are both angry that David Letterman made a sidedeal with the Writers Guild of America that allowed his writers to go back to work. Both hosts, WGA members, crossed picket lines to return to work last week without writers. Leno, as we know, has been writing (or getting help writing) his nightly monologue in defiance of union rules. Kimmel, who mines the "working slug" "lucky to be on television" image, has raged publicly against the restrictions.

According to the New York Times, "in an unusual act of unity emerging from the screenwriters’ strike, two of television’s late-night hosts, Jay Leno of NBC and Jimmy Kimmel of ABC, will appear on each other’s shows on Thursday... The two hosts and their networks will announce the arrangement on Monday...

"Neither host has appeared on the other’s show, but in the course of meetings with the writers’ guild over what the hosts would be permitted to do and telephone discussions between the shows about mutual interests, Mr. Leno and Mr. Kimmel established a relationship..."


These guys know the rules and how the game is played. Whatever game they're playing behind the scenes is a move into dangerous territory.

3 comments:

  1. What do you believe is "dangerous," brain-trust? Then maybe you can explain your vague, un-thought out comments.

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  2. Not wishing to speak for TB, but it's clear to me that TB fears the backstage machinations between the two bitter hosts, who defied the WGA by writing a monologue (Leno) and raged on camera about the unfairness of the restrictions (Kimmel) is "dangerous."

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