Letterman!

hi Jane!

Jane!!

Letterman showed the way. Now it is time for the studios to follow his lead. The AMPTP better get their heads out of their collective asses soon.

Yeh!

I think we’re going to find out who’s funny and who is not.

The moguls are looking stoopiter every day.

Hope the strikers can hold on.

Off to write some more letters to stoopit moguls now….

Jane, AP is saying that the studio’s are claiming the writers have already lost as much as they stood to gain from the new contract. http://www.nytimes.com/aponlin…..abor.html.

Could you ‘deconstruct’ it for us?

I don’t watch Letterman, but I guess this is good news for funniness. We need the late night guys to be making fun of the horribly funny or maybe it is funnily horrible Huckabee.

i hope that if stewart and colbert return to work without their writers, they spend their entire time on the air ripping comedy central and supporting the writers. they could do far more for the writers by going on the air – if they use their voices to embarrass the AMPTP in general and comedy central in particular.

here’s hoping.

EPU’ed from previous post re: Noonan, who did not get much air time, and gave way to Letterman who is going to get his air time.

She’s disobeying the Lord Reagan’ 11th commandment, do not speak ill of another Republican. Guess that makes her a Repubrat.

ot -via atrios, reason #367 that reid and pelosi are idiots.

selise, I think we’ll see them talk about it a little bit more. Perhaps some generous and funny striking writers can slip in a few jokes on their own penny at the expense of the AMPTP. Jokes written for free to blast the AMPTP and broadcasted on their own networks. That’ll be hilarious.

yeah, i’d pay 1.99 to itunes for that… (don’t have cable tv, so i’m dependent on itunes….)

i hope that if stewart and colbert return to work without their writers, they spend their entire time on the air ripping comedy central and supporting the writers. they could do far more for the writers by going on the air – if they use their voices to embarrass the AMPTP in general and comedy central in particular.

here’s hoping.

here’s hoping!

You beat the LA Times by half an hour!

Pelosi seems so unhappy that the Preznit stole an opportunity from her to be a craven capitulator: “You never even told us you’d veto this bill! You never gave us a chance to fold!”

Well, guess I’ll start watching Letterman more regularly.

Well done, WWP and WGA!

From the Gavel:

“Instead, we understand that the President is bowing to the demands of the Iraqi government, which is threatening to withdraw billions of dollars invested in U.S. banks if this bill is signed.”

Now, just wait one freaking minute….What whose billions of dollars does the Iraqi government threaten to withdraw???? Come again??? Is that the missing billions of our taxpayer money??? WTF is going on!!!

The way I see this working is, when the studio heads that are refusing to negotiate realize that not only are the writers striking, and the other talent, actors, hosts, etc. are backing them up, but that much of their audience are also union people or have been at some point in their lives, so they are also backing up the union. When the audience, that is to say, the public gets into the act, the advertisers will also start exerting some pressure on the studio heads.

WTF indeed.

or it could be stolen iraqi money. who the fuck knows?

Ann,

I’d be surprised that the advertisers haven’t been doing this already. C’mon, reruns for the past month on quite a few shows? Who’s tuning in still? Is anyone seeing that new Toyota, or Pepsi commercial? Don’t think so – Wasted marketing and wasted advertisemet fees..

Unbelievable.

Pelosi seems so unhappy that the Preznit stole an opportunity from her to be a craven capitulator: “You never even told us you’d veto this bill! You never gave us a chance to fold!”

Hey Teddy! where was the spew alert!

i don’t think charter cable would have had that most awesome deal i just signed up for, if tons of people were you know, actually watching tv. makes me wonder if people are canceling their cable tv?

p.s. the deal is basic tv (w/ c-span and c-span2 woo-hoo!), internet and voip telephone – all for 34.98/month for 12 months. sounds too good to be true… but guess i’ll find out.

folding once wasn’t good enough?

I’ve known two people who’ve cancelled their cable in the past 2 months. I opted out altogether (I only watch football at bars or friends places). Pretty sure the market is saturated, and pretty sure they are only going to lose, not gain, any more, unless they keep hiking the $$.

Meanwhile, 2008 is the turning point where broadcasters will broadcast in Digital format instead of analog, requiring consumers to pay $$$ to buy boxes, or cable, in order to watch what used to be ‘free’ television..

re the digital change… i was told it was feb 2009 – is that not correct?

2009

yup. That was a typo! Blast. Here’s the real details

Woo Hoo! New Poll has Edwards and Obama at 29% and Clinton at 28% in Iowa…

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/…..n_iowa.php

I’m tellin’ ya, Edwards by a landslide…all the way to 1/20/09. JMHO

more on digital change over here.

‘course the big deal is going to be what is done with the old analogue frequencies (nationwide wifi please), not what i’m going to do with my old tvs that go weeks without getting turned on (sorry wga).

although, i have to say i’m looking forward to having a year of c-span on tv (instead of having to stream it via webcast).

Good for Letterman! Now, United Artists and MGM need to cut a deal with the Creative Guilds, that will give the guilds a stake in the studios, in exchange for the right of first refusal for development projects.

As a sweetener, the Guilds can set up talent scout committees, to find the Junos languishing in the slush pile, which can revive the indie film business.

Tom Cruise spearheaded a successful effort to revive UA last Spring, which kicked off with Lions for Lambs.

http://www.imdb.com/news/sb/2007-02-27#film1

Tom Cruise is reportedly close to raising the money needed to bring United Artists, the studio founded 86 years ago by Charlie Chaplin, D.W. Griffith, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, back to life. According to today’s (Tuesday) Los Angeles Times, Cruise and his producing partner Paula Wagner, have raised the nearly $500 million that it will take to finance a slate of films for the now dormant UA, 65 percent of which is owned by MGM and the remainder, by Cruise and Wagner. The money is reportedly coming from a group of Wall Street investors led by Merrill Lynch. According to the Times, UA’s first production under the deal with Cruise and Wagner is the Robert Redford-directed political drama Lions for Lambs, starring Cruise and Meryl Streep. The director and two stars agreed to defer most of their upfront fees — the entire movie is budgeted at just $35 million — in return for a cut of the gross less production and marketing costs.

MGM (which owns 65% of UA) has a big push to celebrate (and market) the UA archive.

http://www.smartbrief.com/news…..8AF87FF79D

Love CSPAN – Washington Journal is like the original blog by telephone…or something like that.

What about KO on MSNBC…? ;-)

Now, just wait one freaking minute….What whose billions of dollars does the Iraqi government threaten to withdraw???? Come again??? Is that the missing billions of our taxpayer money??? WTF is going on!!!

shhhhh – you’ll wake up Nancy and Harry.

never watched more than clips of keith (thank you C&L!)

Is the Letterman deal really a good deal…for the union in general? Are they negotiating in bits and pieces…that kind of breaks up the power of numbers, doesn’t it? I dunno. I hope nobody gets left out in the end.

OT, but ohhh momma! Greg Sargent’s extended interview with the Islamophobic head of NH Vets for Rudy was just posted, and it’s not to be missed!

I wish!

OK signed petition. I don’t like the hamfisted methods of these network and studio fatcats with the writers. Greed, Greed, greed. And I told Comedy Central so. Well not using those words. I used TRex’s concern troll methods, probably with considerably less finesse.

I can’t believe the primaries are coming up. Anyone worried? Feel anxiety? stomach turning?

I mean, how sweet is this:

When I say get rid of them, I wasn’t necessarily referring to genocide.

OMG…condolences….at least you can watch his special comments or at least read them. That way you get to skip the flying bulls vaulting over barrels while dressed as mermaids and all that fill-in stuff he’s forced to “cover”…nevermind…*g*

Actually, my wildarsed guess is that both or one of them is going to spend the first few minutes of their show(s) staring at the camera saying nothing. Nothing at all. That would be a great tribute to the writers and is totally in line with their type of comedy. Colbert especially.

I liked the cinema verite when Harriet Myers didn’t show up for committee and congressional speeches were interlaced with shots of Harriet’s empty chair. That’s what I call good tv.

Ghouliani’s skeletons just remind me of the scenes from Pirates of the Caribbean….they just keep on coming…

Truly hilarious…especially when everyone kept talking to the hand chair with the little sign in front of it. Gawd….

Will we have the best of 2007 on FDL? I nominate clips of Harriet Miers’ empty chair from C-Span.

I believe you are right….with a few snickers here and there…

Seconded.

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Think of it. MSM lionizes itself with the “best of ” every year. I would be a hoot if the FDL community created a “dirty hippy” “best of” counterpart to MSM.

Anybody watching CNN w/Clinton? Check out her eye make-up. Not to mention her comments.

Here’s Harriet’s Chair:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…..re=related

i am not a big fan of any on of the candidates… so the whole primary thing seems quite depressing.

third that! great idea.

I nominate Sara Taylor:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlSIwJgX5J4

I nominate Monica Goodling:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6wW3kH6Ozk

She took an oath to the preznit. Not to the constitution.
So many goodies.

Oh man that Sara Taylor. Patrick Leahy schooling Regent U grad on government. Too funny in a scary way.

Oh my. That was so funny.

I am waiting for Harriet Miers to be served with contempt. Any day, any day now indeed.

Let’s hope so.

Donita Sparks has a post upstairs.

not holding my breath.

… for the best of series, if it was on c-span (and is in the archives), i can make you tubes clips for you (if you’ll tell me what you want).

That would be fantastic.

Awesome! I hope this results in him finally beating Leno in the ratings. True, Letterman isn’t always consistent but he’s miles ahead of Leno. More importantly, I’m glad some writers will finally be getting a salary and a well-deserved contract.