The Great Comedy Strike of '79

As the US Writers' Strike appears to be drawing to a close, Time Magazine has this article on the comedians' strike of 1979. This is an extract from a new book called Comedy at the Edge.

30 Rock & SNL Live

Here's a review complete with pictures of the 30 Rock live performance at the UCB Theatre last week.

"Even though the cast read from scripts, using only chairs for props, the show was enormous, intimate and undeniable. But it’s easy to define a small, crowded space as ‘intimate’ when you’re crammed in there like I was, cross-legged on the edge of the stage floor like a wide-eyed, open-mouthed kindergartner, stuffed scalp-to nostril between the show’s script coordinator and the Teamster in charge of transportation."

Here's another review, this time from the Huffington Post.

McBrayer and Lutz provided the "commercial" breaks in the form of improvised commercials based on shouted-out suggestions from the audience. The first one was "beer" (McBrayer, as child fishing: "Fishing makes me think of mortality." Lutz urging him to have a beer: "It makes me forget about your mom." McBrayer: "I guess this beer is pretty wonderful." Lutz: "It's beer!" Fin.)

Here's their review of the Saturday Night Live show at the UCB too.

"So, if you want to understand why virtually the entire cast and crew of SNL would put on a full-length live show in this modest little spot, working their asses off as much as they ever would in Studio 8H, that's why — which is precisely what they did last night. The show, which ran almost 2 hours — with no commercial breaks, obviously — was a benefit for the SNL crew members who were laid off because of the writer's strike (the SRO crowd paid $20 apiece to get in). As Poehler said at the show's open: "No one likes laying people off, no one likes getting laid off, but everyone likes getting laid." Poehler, who used the word "family" to describe her colleagues at SNL, also made a point of including NBC in that family, thanking the network "for allowing us to do this" (the show was made up of a mixture of old and new material, with unaired sketches and jokes that Poehler assured the crowd "were never going to make it on the air" — but still presumably belonged to NBC as work-for-hire material)."

Speechless

From tomorrow a number of high profile actors will be taking part in an internet campaign to highlight the Writers' Guild Strike.

Run by Deadline Hollywood and entitled 'Speechless' the campaign features Sean Penn, Holly Hunter, Laura Linney, Alan Cumming, Jay Leno, Harvey Keitel, Tina Fey, Tim Robbins, David Schwimmer, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, Martin Sheen, Susan Sarandon, Andre 3000, Chazz Palminteri, Jason Bateman, Justine Bateman, Rosanna Arquette, Diane Ladd and Matthew Perry among many others.

"During the first day of the strike, director/writer George Hickenlooper (Factory Girl) and writer Alan Sereboff (The Red House) were struck by the talent surrounding them on the picket line. Hickenlooper suggested to Sereboff that they focus their energies on a creative campaign. That night, they met at WGA Headquarters with writers Ian Deitchman (Life As We Know It), Justin Zakham (The Bucket List) and director Josh Marston (Maria Full of Grace). After conferring, the team came to an agreement: What better way to bring attention to the issues regarding the Internet then to use the Internet itself?"

In this video below one of the writing staff of The Daily Show brings you Not The Daily Show.



In that clip there's talk of Viacom suing YouTube's parent company Google for a Billion Dollars. Here on the real Daily Show Jon Stewart and Demetri Martin explain how that might work.

30 Rock Live on Stage

This is a great idea in light of the US writers' strike. The casts of 30 Rock and Saturday Night Live are performing their shows live on stage, with Michael Cera hosting.

Proceeds from the sale of tickets to "30 Rock" - priced at a modest $20 - will go to the Writers Guild strike fund, the Web site says.

Late Show Writers on Strike

The writers for The Late Show in the US have set up their own blog about their striking experiences. Like this little Q & A.

Q: How long will the strike last?

Until the writers achieve a fair contract and/or Lou Ferrigno is elected president.

Q: Why did negotiations with the AMPTP break down?

Negotiations broke down when the AMPTP was unwilling to put “real” proposals on the table that compensate writers for work in new media. Also, AMPTP lead negotiator Nick Counter insisted on bargaining in his underpants.

Q: Will the networks attempt to use the writers' strike, particularly if it is an extended strike, to cancel “Airwolf”?

“Airwolf” was cancelled in 1987.

Not a Word

Back on the American writers' strike John August has a good post making it clear that writers and showrunners are doing -no screenwriting whatsoever- until the strike is resolved.

"The blockbusters of 2009 are sitting unwritten. That’s an economic factor I’ve never seen reported in all of this. The next installments of Spider-Man, Harry Potter, and every other movie franchise are unwritten and unproducible until the strike is over."

Showrunners Out on Strike

Here's a video of the showrunners of TV shows such as The Shield, Scrubs, Family Guy and ER out on strike. There's more of this kind of stuff at United Hollywood.

The Writers Guild Strike

As you'll probably know screnwriters in America are out on strike. Some of the best places to get information on what's going on is at Mark Evanier's blog News From Me and Ken Levine's blog.

It's through the former that I found this article below.

Writer for comics and screen Brian K. Vaughan has this post on his thoughts on the strike and what it could mean for comics.

***Does this mean there’s going to be a flood of Hollywood writers coming into comics?

Maybe? I know a few creators--and a lot of readers--are sometimes annoyed by carpet-bagging movie/television writers swooping into comics to steal “their” jobs, but film/TV writers have been enormously generous about letting me into their world, and I think we should return the favor. Art is not a competition, and there’s always room for talented creators.