SCOTT SIMON, Host:
David Letterman negotiated his own deal with the union that allowed him to return with his writers, and the strike became the topic of their Top 10 list.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV PROGRAM "LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN")
CHRIS ALBERS: I don't have a joke. I just want to remind everyone that we're on strike, so none of us are responsible for this lame list.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
SIMON: Thanks so much for being with us, Mr. Carlin.
PETER CARLIN: Oh, it's my pleasure.
SIMON: I'm intrigued by the fact that at least the overnight rating showed that more people watched Jay Leno.
CARLIN: Well, I think there may have been a lot of curiosity about how Jay and Conan were actually going to function on the air, you know, without their writers. And everybody knew that Dave coming back was just going to have business as usual, whereas theoretically, at least, Leno and Conan O'Brien were going to be making it up as they went along. And Jay has kind of a larger fan base than Dave, but the key thing that's going to change in the next few weeks is that the union is actually encouraging people - actors and other Hollywood union people - to take bookings on the Letterman show and the Craig Ferguson show, whereas they consider the NBC shows and Jimmy Kimmel show on ABC to be, you know, strike breakers.
SIMON: How are the formats changed or how are they going to have change because, presumably, if the shows without writers are going to have to be more interview based and the union is playing hardball, it will be more difficult than ever to book big-named guests who might be reluctant to cross picket line.
CARLIN: Yes. So what ends up happening is that you have to become more creative in who you're booking and, you know, exactly how you fill up your time. And that's where Conan O'Brien, I think, has really come to the fore in the last couple of days. I've been impressed that his show has been hysterically funny because he's going around, essentially making things up as he goes along, you know, going up to his office with his video camera and just sort of showing off his toys on the shelves or climbing up to the catwalks above the stage to see what's up there. So it's this kind of rainy-day-at-home- alone-and-you-know- -the-cat-in-the-hat-shows-up type of environment.
SIMON: Monday night, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert returned with their shows without their writers. Now, these are writer-based shows. They have interviews, but no doubt about it the shows are based on scripts. What do these guys do? How do they hold an audience?
CARLIN: The interesting question with Colbert is the fact that the union, essentially, is forbidding these guys from performing as characters and the Stephen Colbert that you see on the "Colbert Report" isn't really Stephen Colbert. It's the sort of fictional alter ego character.
SIMON: Yeah.
CARLIN: So just by appearing on his show, it seems that Colbert is breaking the union rules.
SIMON: One of the things that made those shows succeed in the market nature is that they weren't doing what Letterman, Leno and, for that matter, Conan O'Brien were doing but something that was distinctly topical. If what they have to do is the same kind of stuff that, say, Conan O'Brien is doing, then they all begin to resemble each other.
CARLIN: Yeah. And, you know, and that's obviously the curved ball that's been thrown to them, that they have to reimagine themselves on the fly. Guys like Conan O'Brien, and I suspect, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, may secretly enjoy and rise to the challenge because they're those kind of odd people who were just engineered to perform and to be funny. And I think it probably, you know, on some level, makes them feel, you know, like mountain climbers who really only are happy when their above 8,000 meters, you know, in the death zone as they call it. For my money, you know, I mean, I think it's great when the TV world, which is always so formulaic and so predictable, veers completely out of control. I mean, it's breathtaking TV.
SIMON: Thanks so much.
CARLIN: Hey, it's my pleasure. Thank you very much.