Martin saves his more sardonic barbs for Letterman's scab-encrusted nemesis—after the jump!

Martin then goes on to admit he also pulled in some lucrative scab-dollars pitching jokes to Letterman's chief competitor. However imprudent the confession, it does go a long way towards explaining why striketime Tonight Show sketches suddenly became far more nuanced, pitting the Square Dancing Cheneys in a bitter love triangle with a beautiful Neiman Marcus sales associate with artistic aspirations.

• Late Show with David Letterman [CBS]

The writers were in the Letterman's lair, waiting to record the list, when someone at NBC got hold of them, our sources say. Zucker's displeasure was threatened and they were convinced to book out of there just before the cameras rolled. (Conan O'Brien writer Chris Albers stood his ground and did the list.)

An NBC spokesperson denies that Zucker made that call or caused that call to be made. "We would not want our people on Letterman but Jeff Zucker is not meddling," this executive says. "This is happening on a lower level." Someone at NBC simply invoked Zucker's name in trying to stampede the writers off the show, the spokesman contends, adding, "I do it all the time when I need clout."

The flack additionally denied a report that Zucker, in an attempt to dissuade 30 Rock's Tracy Morgan from jilting NBC's Jay Leno by appearing on The Late Show to promote upcoming film First Sunday, quietly had one of those "lower-level" functionaries suggest to Morgan that it would take "no more than one phonecall" from the network boss to have a SCRAM-style cuff similar to the one he recently had removed from his ankle attached to Morgan's genitals, a device that could "accidentally" explode if Morgan had so much of a sip of Letterman's green room booze.

• Behind Enemy Lines [Slate]

For one night, Jay Leno and Jimmy Kimmel will solve the problem of booking guests during the writers' strike by appearing on each other's show. [...]

"There are only a few people in the world that know how tough this job is," Leno said Sunday. "Jimmy is one of them. It will be fun to discuss who's a good guest, who's a difficult guest and everything else that comes with sitting behind these desks."

Joked Kimmel: "If Jay and I can come together and guest on each other's shows, then surely there is hope for peace in the Middle East."

The one-night swap will provide band-aid relief at best for the two embattled programs, though may offer interesting scientific insights into whether or not pairing late night's two weakest interviewers could result in the formation of a massive entertainment vacuum that sucks all manner of desks, mugs, and audience members into the ground. Meanwhile there is still no word whether ABC and NBC's exchange program would extend to their other post-primetime properties, plopping a bewildered Martin Bashir on Conan's couch while Nightline devotes an hour to investigating the latest beard trends in the tall, pink and pasty.

• Leno, Kimmel to appear on each other's show [CNN]

To help sort out the potentially confusing intersections of last night's bearded/unbearded and writer-having/writer-free developments in the brave new world of late-night TV (a situation complicated by Craig Ferguson's stunt-beard), Losanjealous has composed this handy Venn diagram, which should get you completely up to speed at a single glance.

• Reader Picks '08: The Late Night Beard Battle [Losanjealous]

• The Return of Late Night Coverage [Defamer]

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"With the New Year upon us, I am left with a difficult decision," he said in a statement released by NBC Monday morning. "Either go back to work and keep my staff employed or stay dark and allow 80 people, many of whom have worked for me for fourteen years, to lose their jobs.

"If my show were entirely scripted I would have no choice," he added. "But the truth is that shows like mine are hybrids, with both written and non-written content. An unwritten version of 'Late Night,' though not desirable, is possible - and no one has to be fired."

O'Brien said that he plans to talk about the strike on his show.

"I will make clear, on the program, my support for the writers and I'll do the best version of 'Late Night' I can under the circumstances," he said. "Of course, my show will not be as good. In fact, in moments it may very well be terrible. My sincerest hope is that all of my writers are back soon, working under a contract that provides them everything they deserve."

We're sure that O'Brien's forced return to work will be an emotionally stirring affair; once he finishes apologizing to his audience for the shortfall in quality that will inevitably plague his writerless product, he'll be joined on stage by the Masturbating Bear, a member of his late night family who'll continue to be adversely affected by his joke-writing staff's absence. Nothing more than a knowing nod toward the bear's grotesquely swollen testicles, which now agonizingly strain against a once loose-fitting diaper and can't be drained by a furiously stroking ursine paw without the services of Guild members, will be necessary to communicate the suffering we'll all experience until the strike is settled.

• NBC's latenight hosts return to work [Variety]
• Letterman Seeks Deal With Writers' Union [NY Times]