The comics poked fun at themselves and the writers strike without the support of staff writers through improvisational quips and barbs

By Stacey Silberman

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 1/8/08 – Monday night brought back Comedy Central’s late night line-up featuring “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and “The Colbert Report,” but unlike David Letterman and Craig Ferguson, they did so without the support of their team of comedy writers. They are essentially on their own out there.

Stewart came back with a “Strike Unibrow,” instead of a Strike beard like Conan, or the one Letterman shaved off on air that night. He dealt with the strike as a news story, like his barbs on New Hampshire and the primary. Stewart even poked fun at Comedy Central’s owner Viacom for charging $1.99 for each episode of “Daily Show” on iTunes, and not giving the writers any of the income on the theory that the episodes were promotional and therefore worthless. He then pointed out that Viacom must see some value as the company was suing YouTube for airing them for $1 billion. “A billion dollars? What are they, four-years-old?”

Jon Stewart pointed out to his audience that the show would not be the same without his heart and soul (staff) to back him. “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is a show we do with our very creative team of field producers and correspondents and studio people and, of course, our writers,” he said during his monologue. He then added with a touch of mockery, “From now on, until the end of the strike, we’ll be doing ‘A Daily Show with Jon Stewart,’ but not the ‘The Daily Show.’”

Stewart is a skilled stand-up comic and host, yet he is still going to have to be a little sharper to keep it up for months without writers. And he has the Oscars hosting gig coming up, which he may have to ad-lib all by himself.

Colbert’s more developed faux conservative is better suited to joking in character on the politics of the writers strike.

Colbert opened with an apology to his audience, claiming he’s experiencing technical difficulties. “I got a problem here,” he exclaimed in a pissed-off tone. “There are no words on my (Tele) prompter.”

Going from indignant to incredulous, he declared that his problem is not a lack of writers to provide “commentary” for the right-leaning comedian, but that “My understanding is, this little magic box (the Teleprompter) reads my thoughts and lays them up on the screen for me to read to the audience.”

To his horror, the director advised otherwise, saying that the words would have to be provided by staff writers.

Colbert retorted, “The writers, the guys on the fourth floor with the opium bongs, playing Guitar Hero all day! I find that a bit of a stretch.”

Colbert lamented further, “I don’t like unions and I don’t need writers. Which brings me to tonight’s word,” a popular feature of the show. However, Colbert was immediately taken-aback, as there wasn’t a word to be found — because there are no writers or any words at all streaming from his “magic box.”

The shows have been out of commission for two months along with striking writers and fans who have eagerly awaited their return.

Both shows had guest interviews to fill in gaps during their half-hour long shows. Stewart welcomed Cornell University professor Ronald Seeber, a specialist in labor relations, whom Stewart conversed with about the strike.

Colbert entertained two guests during his show. One was Atlantic Magazine’s Andrew Sullivan and the other was Richard B. Freeman, author of the book “America Works: Critical Thoughts on the Exceptional U.S. Labor Market.”

Of course, with the return of the struck shows, comes the Writers Guild of America East, which along with about 15 picketers, included president Michael Winslip, outside of the shows’ Manhattan studio.