daily show

Stewart, Colbert Go Back To Work Unibrowed, Biblically Bearded, And Without Writers

1:10AM Defamer Hollywood | With somewhat less fanfare than accompanied The Return of Late Night on January 2nd, in which network talk shows made a mass return to the airwaves in various writer-having/writer-free and hirsute/clean-shaven configurations, Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert reported for duty Monday night–initially sporting a Strike Unibrow and Strike Moses-Beard, respectively, to show their solidarity with their still-missing scribes. While Stewart lamented his program’s inability to get the kind of side-deal the WGA made with Worldwide Pants (the Guild, it seems, isn’t really embracing the idea of giving corporate monolith Viacom a break), he still dedicated most of the show to the strike; in the above segment–one probably not as improvised as the WGA would like, but given the pro-cause subject matter, the union probably won’t be sending anyone over to Stewart’s office to have a testy sit-down about strike rules–the host details the dispute over internet compensation, explaining how the $1.99 fees charged for iTunes downloads of his show are purely a shipping and handling charge, the proposed “Shut The Fuck Up” formula for new-media residuals, and how the viewing of written content on iPods clearly falls under the “Hickory Farms promotional cheese” principle. Writers Strike [TheDailyShow.com] Comedy Central Hosts Return to TV [NY Times] More »