Late-Night Hosts Return to TV With Slew of Writers Strike Jokes

With the writers’ strike over, studios wasted no time in getting the late-night TV hosts back to work this week, and those hosts tried their best to catch up on all the jokes they couldn’t make over the summer. Unsurprisingly, they leaned heavily on the strike itself for their material. Each of them made self-effacing jokes as well as some digs at the studios that dragged the strike on for so long.

The Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) finally reached a deal last week, meaning the writers’ strike officially ended. The late-night talk shows were the first ones back to work, starting with John Oliver on Sunday night and then Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon on Monday. They all had a lot to catch up on, and while they put their own unique twists on it, there were plenty of similarities as well – mainly their jokes about the strike.

“Thanks to the picket lines, my writers got fresh air and sunshine – and they do not care for that,” Colbert quipped. “Now they’re back safely in their joke holes doing what they do best: making my prompter word screen full of good and ha-ha.”

Kimmel also joked about the stereotypes about writers, saying: “This is a big win for the little guy – and a big win for the chubby guy, and the hairy dude, and the weird girl that doesn’t make eye contact, and for the two pot-heads in Star Wars t-shirts that are too small for their bodies, and the guy who’s too old to have a ponytail, and the lady whose cats each have their own Instagram pages. We call them writers, and they are back to work, thankfully.”

Of course, any jokes at the writers’ expense were probably written by them, so no offense was given. The late-night writing staffs were some of the first to get back to work with the strike over, and others are now free to return to TV, movies and other paid projects. However, the SAG-AFTRA strike will continue to halt work on most productions, and many writers without immediate obligations are choosing to continue picketing alongside their actor colleagues.

While the AMPTP delayed negotiations with the WGA for much of the summer, it is already in active talks with SAG-AFTRA to end this strike as well and get all of Hollywood back to work. According to a report by The Wrap, the two groups met on Monday and took Tuesday off, but are meeting again on Wednesday. The terms of the WGA deal may be guideposts for this deal, but there are some very specific issues that actors will likely want their own solutions to.

There’s no telling when the Hollywood strike will be over once and for all, but every day it drags on changes the timeline for the upcoming TV season and the 2024 blockbuster movie slate. For now, late-night TV may be the most reliable platform for new content coming out.