Thursday, January 3, 2008

Lenno accidentally breaks strike rules

Jay Lenno wrote his own monologue for the Jan 2, 2007 episode of his program. Blogger Nikki Finke however, is insisting that scabs or strike breaking WGA writers MUST have written it.

Based on what Lenno said, it sounds like he just misunderstood the contract, thinking he could write the monologue himself without violating the contract. The article seems to assume Lenno is incapable of writing his own material, despite the fact that he was an accomplished solo act long before he became the host of his current program. Given the quality of most of the writing on Television, I suspect the WGA should be more concerned that he'll decide he prefers writing his own material again.

I posted a comment to Ms. Finke's blog, but have not seen it on the page. It's possible that she just moderates her blog and the comment won't show up for a few hours / days / whatever. Given the tenor of most of the comments however, I suspect she's just filtering out comments that don't assume Lenno is some sort of union buster out to screw over the writers.

I'm tempted to make a jab at the quality level of most TV and film writers, but a few minutes with the average sitcom or soap opera says all that's really necessary.

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