Late Night Hosts Feast On Sweat Of Poor Comedy Drones
Oh, to write jokes for one of those late night TV shows! Seriously, please, let me do that. Those staff writers get paid. But the freelancers get totally screwed!
See, you can’t expect the combined efforts of a highly paid writing staff and a ridiculously highly paid star comedian TV host to be enough to come up with five minutes of jokey monologues every night. So most big time late night shows—from Leno and Letterman to SNL—buy jokes from freelancers, for pennies.
Johnson says he has gotten more than 160 of his jokes on the “Late Show With David Letterman” and, before that, “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.”
The 39-year-old is part of an underground network of comedy writers who supply the late-night programs with a constant stream of material. If one of their jokes gets on the air, they get a check for $US75 or $US100. What they don’t get is any credit or union pay.
This pisses off the writers guild, but they can’t do too much about it, because the shows don’t mind it, and the writers are so dazzled to get their material on air they don’t complain. But here’s the benefit of union membership:
While the guild’s contract permits the hiring of freelancers, it requires that they be paid union minimums — $US3,215 for a comedy sketch under 10 minutes — if they are employed as professional writers on a guild-covered show.
$US3200 for one little sketch. Good money, right? (PAUSE) Yea, or as Bill Gates calls it, “Pocket Lint.”
(PAUSE FOR LAUGHTER).
Call me, Jay!
(PAUSE FOR LAUGHTER).
[LAT]
comedy
entertainment
humor
jay leno
late night
letterman
media
television
the working man
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Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)
$3215, that figure smells of months and months of tireless negotiations.
Years ago, I actually managed to get on a special fax list that allowed me to send Jay jokes every morning.
It turned out, unsurprisingly, that my comedic sensibility was not quite the same as his.
Johnny Carson sent Letterman jokes after he left the air, which still amazes me to this day.
[www.nytimes.com]
But there's a difference between a multi-millionaire sending in jokes and a struggling writer just trying to skimp by. The latter should get what they're due.
@i'm a bottle: I'd listen to Jay Leno's monologue for $75. Not a penny less.
Awesome X
The world, as Tom Friedman reminds us, is flat, and this post is only going to make the late night hosts outsource for the funny. When the late-night monologues devolve into hackey clarified butter material, you'll know it was Hamilton's fault.
That's cold.(tm)
GORDONGARTRELLE
Knowing Leno's monologue, I think that $75 per joke is right about on the nose.
i'm a bottle
This is way funnier than Jay Leno, and it's free!
+ Watch video
Let's organize to run Hamilton out of the blogosphere!
SultanaEleusis
$75 bucks a joke is what a comic pays a writer in the clubs to take a joke.
It's what Bob Hope paid his guys.
About 100 years ago.
It's he minimum wage end of the game.
Like making fries at In and Out.
@ambitious: Thank God that your calculations don't involve converting to a sexagesimal format. That would be complicated. Me drunk!
i'm a bottle
@i'm a bottle: You need to move your decimal point two spaces to the left.
@Awesome X: You, two spaces to the right.
I math!
ambitious
@SultanaEleusis: aw, Hamilton's doing a fine job.
@i'm a bottle: Or chin. That's gotta be worth at least a buck,
@RonMwangaguhunga: Ghee whiz, you don't have to be so harsh!