Both earned the scorn of the writers they betrayed, but at least Ellen made some gesture of solidarity by foregoing the monologue entirely. Leno, on the other hand—being the very giant-chinned embodiment of American can-do spirit—simply pushed up his blazer sleeves and wrote his monologues himself.

Being a WGA member, however, this was a direct violation of Guild guidelines, eliciting this terse wrist-slapping from the union: "A discussion took place today between Jay Leno and the Writers Guild to clarify to him that writing for The Tonight Show constitutes a violation of the Guilds' strike rules."

Now, one year later, the WGA is still peeved enough to be mulling a disciplinary action against Leno for peddling his stash of strictly contraband Dick Cheney and L.A. weather jokes. Variety reports:

It's understood that the guild has brought disciplinary proceedings against Leno, who is a Writers Guild of America member and writer for his NBC latenighter. The specifics of the proceedings are unclear, but the process should come to a head soon. [...]

That discipline may include "expulsion or suspension from guild membership, imposition of monetary fines or censure," according to the WGA's strike rules. There is also an appeals process.

We suspect this is more symbolic gesture than disciplinary measure—a premonitory, three-day-old carp wrapped in newsprint and left on the hood of one of Leno's old-timey gangster cars, as if to say, "Congratulations on the 10 p.m. strip, Leno. Now keep our guilded gag writers knee-deep in Funny Headlines, or Stuttering John sleeps with the fishes."

• WGA may discipline Jay Leno [Variety]

The Writers Guild of America has initiated disciplinary proceedings against Leno, Variety reports, and could ultimately expel or suspend his union membership. The union is upset that Leno wrote his own material in January 1008, in the weeks before the writers strike ended, allowing the Tonight Show to return to the air and compete against David Letterman, who owned his Late Show outright and was thus able to settle with the union early. Had Leno not come back, Letterman almost certainly would have clobbered him in the ratings.

NBC said at the time the union gave Leno permission to write his own material in a meeting and that the union's prior contract allowed him to do so anyway.

What ramifications a union expulsion or suspension would have for Leno's new 10 pm show are unclear. But it would definitely be embarrassing for the late-night host to be slapped by the union he publicly supported in a big way during the writers strike last fall. Sounds like the union isn't too happy with Leno annexing a huge chunk of NBC's prime time. At least the time didn't go to reality shows, guys. Those programs barely even have writers.

Those would be Charlie Kaufman, who made his writer/director debut on the criminally underrated Synecdoche, New York, and Jenny Lumet, whose Rachel Getting Married press tour made her this year's most-publicized young screenwriter outside of Dustin Lance Black. Black was nommed for Milk, and Woody Allen and Robert Siegel got some fairly unimpeachable nods for their respective efforts, but the Coen brothers for Burn After Reading? Really? And don't make us talk to you about The Visitor again, lest we be forced to bash a djembe into our skulls.

The full nominations:

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Burn After Reading, Written by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Milk, Written by Dustin Lance Black
Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Written by Woody Allen
The Visitor, Written by Tom McCarthy
The Wrestler, Written by Robert Siegel

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Screenplay by Eric Roth; Screen Story by Eric Roth and Robin Swicord
The Dark Knight, Screenplay by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan; Story by Christopher Nolan & David S. Goyer
Doubt, Screenplay by John Patrick Shanley
Frost/Nixon, Screenplay by Peter Morgan
Slumdog Millionaire, Screenplay by Simon Beaufoy

On both the front and back of the DVD, the words "A Christopher Nolan Film" were marked out. We initially brushed off the matter (assuming some posthumous Joker vandalism) until another tipster wrote in today about his own censored screener. "I just wonder what's the rationale - conspiracy to cockblock Nolan from Oscar consideration?" asked the tipster. "Secret WB plan to put Ratner in the running for Batman 3: Egghead Takes Gotham?"

We called Warner Bros. to find out, and a helpful publicist sighed. "You must be WGA," she said. "It's because the guild won't accept a possessory credit for a director." Thus, a poor awards season intern must censor every DVD with black pen. We eagerly await the day that the WGA not only retains the services of the "Unimportant Defacers Team" to enact web-wide cleanup, but sends Patric Verrone into every Suncoast Video in Southern California to scrawl over the terribly offensive possessory credits awarded to Space Chimps. Way to pick your battles, WGA!

Dexter, Friday Night Lights, Lost, Mad Men and The Wire occupy this year's dramatic category, with Lost filling in for 2008 retiree The Sopranos. (Dexter was the only one of the nominees to earn an episode nod as well.) In comedy, 30 Rock, Entourage, The Office, The Simpsons and Weeds earned nods, with the latter two filling in for HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm and Flight of the Conchords, which return to the network next year. Emmy surprise Breaking Bad drew three nominations, including one for Best New Series, for which it'll compete against Fringe, In Treatment, Life on Mars and True Blood.

Pretty much all the late-night shows that get nominated for everything else were recognized today as well, with Conan, Letterman, Real Time, SNL, The Colbert Report and The Daily Show vying for Best Comedy/Variety Series. The awards will be announced Feb. 7; the full listing is available at the WGA's site. Good luck to all, and enjoy it while you can, Weeds.

• 2009 Writers Guild Awards [WGA]

The Guild sends word today that it reached an agreement with Perry after five months of negotiations, during which a handful of veteran scribes for his series Meet the Browns and House of Payne were terminated for attempting to unionize the staff. The catch? Those writers will not be coming back, according to a WGA release issued late this morning.

But, they added, the mogul "thanked them for their services and wished them well in their future endeavors." Surely that's of little comfort to the reeling Tyler Perry Four, who now confront the reality they may never again have the enviable opportunity to mass-produce Madea jokes for a Perry-starved populace. We hope the NAACP negotiators can sleep at night.

This morning, about 10:45am, I was returning some clothes to the Michael Kors store on Rodeo Drive when I had to cross a big picket line of shouting strikers (all male writers, WGA posters and banners) protesting "Project Runway." They had pulled the fire alarm on the nearby Valentino store also, adding to the noise of their shouting. I walked past them and the two security guards and went to enter the store, and upon opening the front door was startled to see Tim Gunn and Heidi Klum staring at me! They were obviously shooting a segment for the upcoming season, as there were lights and baffling filling the entire showroom. I quickly shut the door and ended up giving my good to a saleswoman who cam around from the back. There was a huge crowd watching all of this and taking pictures. I don't know how they are going to edit this as I'm certain the yelling and commotion could be heard inside the store.

While we sympathize with their cause, we would never condone committing illegal acts of vandalism or mischief in order to get a point across. Interrupting a location shoot with chants of "Heidi Heidi Heidi Ho! Klum and Kors have got to go!" is one thing, therefore, but setting off a neighbor's fire alarm is quite another. Besides—they could have achieved the same eardrum-lacerating effect just by having invited contestant Kenley to stand in the entranceway and talk excitedly about her new collection.

• Previously: Kenley Collins: 'Runway' Villainess Ascendant [Defamer]

Fox has ordered a primetime comedy-variety show featuring Ozzy Osbourne and his family, and has engaged FremantleMedia North America, the company behind American Idol, to produce it. Because they wanted to hire WGA members to write the show, Fremantle contacted the WGAW to see if we would agree to a sub-standard contract. Attempting to pay as little as possible to the writers on the show, Fremantle asked to treat it as “half-scripted” and pay greatly reduced writing fees to those writers who wrote skits, interview material, intros, and “outros.”

We refused to agree to such a deal because it would drastically undermine hard-won minimums and standards. [...]

Accordingly, WGA East and West members may not write for the Osbourne variety show (working title: The Osbournes: Loud and Dangerous). Any members who perform writing services on that show do so at their own peril as they will be violating WGA Working Rule 8 and could be fined up to 100% of their compensation for that work.

We agree, and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our variety-show-patter-writing brothers and sisters. If they're going to conjure up golden nuggets like:
"Sharon: Say goodnight, Ozzy.
Ozzy: Grfbbbllhlrhhh.
Audience laughter"
then they sure as hell should be paid fairly for it!

• To Our Fellow Members, [WGA.org]

They write, "By publicly naming names and encouraging people who have the power to hire writers to keep them 'at arm's length,' and saying they must be 'judged accountable, it is clear the WGA leadership is seeking to deny employment to these writers in the future. That is a direct violation of federal labor law, and as the employers of those writers, we have a responsibility to defend them and the rule of law in this case." The WGA quickly responded, saying the charges are "baseless and represent an intrusion by the studios into an internal union matter." We fear this matter will only continue to escalate, leading eventually to ugly and violent protests as the Fi-Core 28 are bussed onto studio lots to enact their basic, soap-writer's right to pen crappy dialogue involving serial-killing transexuals and the cancer-battling half-sisters who love them.

• WGA, studios return to corners [Variety]

They write that the fi-coring members "must be held at arm's length by the rest of us and judged accountable for what they are - strikebreakers whose actions placed everything for which we fought so hard at risk," a seething reprobation arrived upon after an all-night drafting session that saw the floor littered in crumpled-up wads of paper containing such rejected sentence fragments as "fi-ggots," "...strongly suggest you trip them in the studio commissaries," and "can suck our balls." The 21 black-listees are linked to on a separate page. A preliminary investigation reveals almost all to be soap writers, with the exception of U-Turn and Three Kings writer John Ridley. As for Michelle Lisanti, we have no reason to believe the former One Life To Live writer is of any relation to Defamer's founder and editor-at-large, or, to be a little more sudsy about it, that he may have been masquerading, Tootsie-style, as a cross-dressing daytime drama writer under our noses all along.

The letter follows:

Letter from the Presidents

Dear Fellow Members of the Writers Guilds East and West:

During our 100-day strike, the extraordinary solidarity you demonstrated on the picket lines and the courage and dedication with which you committed yourselves to our cause were not only an inspiration but also the key to making our actions successful.

In the face of enormous personal and financial hardship on the part of many, you sacrificed in the knowledge that your refusal to work would reap benefits not only for yourselves but countless others in the creative community, now and in the future. Your stalwart resolve paid off.

Yet among the many there were a puny few who chose to do otherwise, who consciously and selfishly decided to place their own narrow interests over the greater good. Extreme exceptions to the rule, perhaps, but this handful of members who went financial core, resigning from the union yet continuing to receive the benefits of a union contract, must be held at arm's length by the rest of us and judged accountable for what they are - strikebreakers whose actions placed everything for which we fought so hard at risk.

While others forfeited paychecks to stand in unity with their fellow Guild members, many who went financial core continued to collect salaries. Without concern for their colleagues, they turned their backs and tossed the burden of collective action onto the rest of us, taking jobs, reducing our leverage and damaging the Guilds for their own advantage.

Even in cases of deep financial distress, there were other options, including generous no-interest loans from our strike funds, which would have sustained them until the end of the strike and beyond. That's what unions are for.

Those who went financial core did not share in the adversity; and should not share in our victory. They cannot vote in our elections, run for Guild office, attend Guild meetings and other events, or participate in the Writers Guild Awards. Further, it has been determined by the National Council of the Guilds West and East, and affirmed by Guild East Council and the Guild West Board, that we send this joint letter with a link to a list on respective websites of those who went financial core during the strike. To view it now and for future reference, you can find it at: subpage_member.aspx?id=2828.

The rest of us are all in this together.
Sincerely,

Patric M. Verrone
President, WGAW

Michael Winship
President, WGAE

• Letter from the Presidents [WGA.org]

"When your own union doesn't back what you've done, the only honorable thing to do is not participate."

So, where did it all go wrong between George and the Guild? Clooney claims that he found the 17-year-old-script for Leatherheads, written by Duncan Brantley and Rick Reilly, and gave it a major overhaul. In fact, he feels he wrote all but 2 of the scenes in the period football comedy, and was incensed that the Guild refused to recognize his efforts. Clooney would have resigned from the Guild altogether, but that would mean he couldn't work on WGA-coverd productions anymore, so instead we went Fi-Core. According to producing partner Grant Heslov:

"Financial core was his form of protest, but when he did it, he didn't want it public. We're both big union guys. Between us, we belong to 12 unions. I think they made the wrong decision, and he was within his rights to respond by going financial core."

Amazingly, this all happened before the strike, but George decided to keep it quiet until now so it wouldn't have a negative impact on the protest. Damn you, Clooney. Even when you're angry, you're still a mensch!

• WGA, Clooney at odds over credit [Variety]

So imagine our delight on last night's Late Show, when host David Letterman introduced Counter and WGAw executive director David Young (close enough), there to commemorate the new contract with a vigorous round of tonsil hockey. Take heed, SAG president Alan Rosenberg: When the time comes for your own round of lemonpartyaid, Counter is notorious for slipping the tongue.

• Late Show with David Letterman

• Previously: The Strike Is Over! On Wednesday! Let There Be Rejoicing! But Not Too Much! [Defamer]

Those who don't want to kick their gloom habit cold-turkey can feel free to fret about the June 30th expiration of SAG's contract with the studios and the possible (if increasingly unlikely) walkout that could follow, or spend some time perusing today's "Was the strike worth it?" piece in Variety, which attempts to throw a sobering bucket of cold water upon those still drunk on this weekend's good news by making them consider the "here and now" losses incurred while achieving "victories in new media that may pay big dividends in the future." (Example: Did you know that some of the aforementioned showrunners may have sacrificed hundreds of thousands of dollars during the stoppage to help save writers' livelihoods in the internet age? They must be crazy!) In the interest of preserving the first days of positive feelings the industry has experienced in about fourteen weeks, can't we all go back to swigging champagne and not picking though the wreckage of the post-strike landscape, at least for the next 48 hours or so? No one wants his Monday morning hangover exascerbated by the tsk-tsking pal who insists you move the car you've parked on his lawn before your headache begins to subside.

• Showrunners back to work Monday [Variety]
• Dealmakers spurred by fear, loathing [Variety]
• TV's new developments [Variety]

To Our Fellow Members,

We have a tentative deal.

It is an agreement that protects a future in which the Internet becomes the primary means of both content creation and delivery. It creates formulas for revenue-based residuals in new media, provides access to deals and financial data to help us evaluate and enforce those formulas, and establishes the principle that, "When they get paid, we get paid."

Specific terms of the agreement are described in the summary at the following link and will be further discussed at our Saturday membership meetings on both coasts. At those meetings we will also discuss how we will proceed regarding ratification of this agreement and lifting the restraining order that ends the strike. Details of the Los Angeles meeting can be found at this link.

Less than six months ago, the AMPTP wanted to enact profit-based residuals, defer all Internet compensation in favor of a study, forever eliminate "distributor's gross" valuations, and enforce 39 pages of rollbacks to compensation, pension and health benefits, reacquisition, and separated rights. Today, thanks to three months of physical resolve, determination, and perseverance, we have a contract that includes WGA jurisdiction and separated rights in new media, residuals for Internet reuse, enforcement and auditing tools, expansion of fair market value and distributor's gross language, improvements to other traditional elements of the MBA, and no rollbacks.

Over these three difficult months, we shut down production of nearly all scripted content in TV and film and had a serious impact on the business of our employers in ways they did not expect and were hard pressed to deflect. Nevertheless, an ongoing struggle against seven, multinational media conglomerates, no matter how successful, is exhausting, taking an enormous personal toll on our members and countless others. As such, we believe that continuing to strike now will not bring sufficient gains to outweigh the potential risks and that the time has come to accept this contract and settle the strike.

Much has been achieved, and while this agreement is neither perfect nor perhaps all that we deserve for the countless hours of hard work and sacrifice, our strike has been a success. We activated, engaged, and involved the membership of our Guilds with a solidarity that has never before occurred. We developed a captains system and a communications structure that used the Internet to build bonds within our membership and beyond. We earned the backing of other unions and their members worldwide, the respect of elected leaders and politicians throughout the nation, and the overwhelming support of fans and the general public. Our thanks to all of them, and to the staffs at both Guilds who have worked so long and patiently to help us all.

There is much yet to be done and we intend to use all the techniques and relationships we've developed in this strike to make it happen. We must support our brothers and sisters in SAG who, as their contract expires in less than five months, will be facing many of the same challenges we have just endured. We must further pursue new relationships we have established in Washington and in state and local governments so that we can maintain leverage against the consolidated multinational conglomerates with whom we bargain. We must be vigilant in monitoring the deals that are made in new media so that in the years ahead we can enforce and expand our contract. We must fight to get decent working conditions and benefits for writers of reality TV, animation, and any other genre in which writers do not have a WGA contract.

Most important, however, is to continue to use the new collective power we have generated for our collective benefit. More than ever, now and beyond, we are all in this together.

Best,

Patric M. Verrone
President, WGAW

Michael Winship
President, WGAE

• Writers, Producers Reach Tentative Deal [Variety]

· Hard-to-kill Heroes cheerleader and Official Friend of the Dolphins Hayden Panettiere joins the cast of teen comedy Daydream Nation, possibly opposite a Culkin. [Variety]
· FX has abruptly decided not to order any more episodes of Dirt or The Riches because of the strike's interruption of their production, but hasn't yet ruled out the possibility that they might renew the shows for third seasons that will have to awkwardly resolve all the plot threads cut in the middle of this abbreviated run. [THR]
· CBS is its moving Survivor brand into fitness products, starting with something called "Supercharged Sunflower Seeds," a snack undoubtedly rich in the nutrients one needs to live while stranded on a deserted island or trapped in a remote part of China. [Variety]

Time is of the essence in getting the board to sign off on a deal with the upcoming television pilot season, and the Feb. 24 Academy Awards show, hanging in the balance.

While the negotiating committee, headed by John Bowman, is expected to recommend the pending contract, approval by the board is not necessarily a slam-dunk because it is composed of several hard-liners who may be tougher to win over.

Furthermore, any approval would come only after a formal accord is drawn up by lawyers on both sides.

Attorneys are putting in writing what guild negotiators and studio representatives verbally agreed to Friday when they bridged key differences over how much writers should earn for work distributed over the Internet.

To help thousands of still-fragile WGA members survive the emotionally harrowing week to come, United Hollywood urges writers to take a deep breath, head back to the picket lines, and hope for the best; after all, Friday's reported gains could easily be lawyered out of existence if the Guild allows itself to be distracted by premature dreams of the strike's end—or, in a far more distressing scenario, if AMPTP bogeyman Nick Counter, enraged by the speedy undoing of months of his hard work in negotiations-avoidance, somehow chews through his restraints in time to scuttle the seemingly imminent deal.

• Guild board favors deal, with caution [LAT]
• Previously: The Strike Is Over! Or Over In A Week! Or Everyone's Being Set Up For Another Crushing Letdown! [Defamer]

But despite the widespread, media-blackout-defying leaks (and mogul-supplied proclamations issued from a luxury suite at the big game in Arizona) indicating that a deal could be reached sometime this week (huzzah!), the Guild quickly cautioned its members not to blow the remainder of their strike funds on lavish going-back-to-work parties based on "rumors about either the existence of an agreement or its terms" (muted huzzah!). So until WGA leadership issues its official announcement of a new contract (to be accompanied by a photo of president Patric Verrone hugging a weeping trio of Les Moonves, Peter Chernin, and Bob Iger), everyone should resume their still-important picketing responsibilities, resisting the impulse to indulge in the occasional high-five recognizing that the end might be in sight.

• Progress Toward Ending Writers' Strike [NY TImes]
• Contract outlined in Hollywood writers strike [LAT]
• Strike: An end in sight? [Variety
• [THR]

· The producer of Broadway's Young Frankenstein answers for a string of unpopular business decisions, admitting that he may have made a teensy mistake in deciding to charge an obscene $450 for an outrage-inspiring "premier" ticket. [Variety]
· Continuing to resist the temptation to cash in on easy romantic comedy roles that once seemed part of his career trajectory, Josh Hartnett signs on for Bunraku, a live-action, martial arts adventure that "draws from a mixed bag of genres including puppets, origami, comic books, video games and German expressionism." [THR]
· The Screen Actors Guild stakes out a date for the 2009 SAGgies, which, barring a total strike disaster, will be of much less interest than '08's. [Variety]

The Ukrainians apparently considered this a momentous occasion. When he finally stepped onto the tarmac in Kiev, Frolick was greeted with a dozen roses and a row of shivering reporters who had been waiting two hours to shove microphones in his face.

"What will feelm be about?" one asked.

"About 80 minutes long," Frolick said to mute stares.

In a way that dramatically upended the skewed hierarchy of the Hollywood system so embedded in the subtext of the current contract deadlock, Frolick was suddenly in the flopped position of being a big fish in a small, frozen pond. And the star treatment reflected that.

Frolick was put up in the Boris Godunov Suite at the Opera, a five-star hotel. He was escorted to every great restaurant and nightclub in the city by a chauffeured Mercedes town car, from which he was frequently captured embarking and disembarking by paparazzi (yes, Frolick was an excellent American ambassador and kept his underwear on).

Over the week he was in Kiev, Frolick starred in half a dozen crowded news conferences, saw "Carmen" performed at the Kiev Opera House and dined with Richard Steffens, the U.S. Embassy's cultural attaché. He participated in a charity event for McDonald's (which has a tie-in to the movie) with the country's top athletes, politicians and celebrities.

His picture was all over the local magazines. One night he was watching the news in his hotel room and saw coverage of the Writers Guild of America strike rally at Fox that he had marched in the week before.

"The press coverage was staggering," Frolick says. "I was Chernobyl without the toxins. Billy Frolick is now to Ukraine what David Hasselhoff is to Germany."

Thankfully, the piece gives every indication that Frolick is a self-deprecating, level-headed sort likely to resist the temptations of meteoric fame that ultimately reduced Hasselhoff to a haunted, floorburger-consuming shell of the megastar with whom his Teutonic fans first fell madly in love. But while the lucky writer seems to have emerged from his Ukrainian odyssey no worse for the wear, we fear the publicity the article will bring to this once-secret Scribetopia will quickly result in its ruination. Soon, agents will flock the hotel bars of Kiev in a desperate attempt to land their idling clients the same kind of commissionable, WGA-approved dream gigs just completed by the pioneering Frolick, an unwelcome infestation that will render the onetime paradise unrecognizable from the Hollywood wasteland from whence the Armani-clad invaders came.

• Striking writer heads to the Ukraine for work [LAT]