May I also suggest Brassed Off which is a non-traditional brass-band-based musical?

I think the reason that people were upset with Leno was that he had promised his workers that they would be taken care of, then this happened. Apparently he thought they would go back to work with either guest hosts or without scripts (no opening monologue/skits, more musician acts) but that didn't pan out.

I think the reason that people were upset with Leno was that he had promised his workers that they would be taken care of, then this happened. Apparently he thought they would go back to work with either guest hosts or without scripts (no opening monologue/skits, more musician acts) but that didn't pan out.

Exactly. A lot of the crew were saying that, when 'the most powerful person in television' tells you to relax, you relax. And they paid for that. Which on the one hand, says a lot about Leno's clout these days.

But it also says a bit about the AMPTP, and how they don't seem to have the situation as in control as they originally seemed to. NBC was touting the idea of going in with guest hosts, et al. They seemed supremely confident it was going to happen. That they've turned around and laid off their staff is a sign they're panicking a bit.

Much earlier, Tim (and he's hardly alone in this idea) said he believed the AMPTP had allowed the strike to happen because they had done the math and thought the numbers were in their favor to do so. (Wildly paraphrasing). I agree that's what they did, but I'm thinking things didn't work out exactly as they expected, either. I'm beginning to suspect this strike is costing more than they expected.

May I also suggest Brassed Off which is a non-traditional brass-band-based musical?

Ooh! Yes! Based on the true story of the Grimethorpe Colliery Brass Band (who play all the actual music that the actors are pretending to play) from my home town! Which was utterly crippled by the miners' strike for about a decade, of course.

God, I heart brass band music. Northern working men playing their hearts out...gah!

(The Full Monty, does that count? Probably not? That's set down the road in Sheffield, home of Sean Bean.)

Yeah, but Matewan and Norma Rae aren't musicals.

There is some music in Matewan as well as future prominent musician Will Oldham.

A lot of the crew were saying that, when 'the most powerful person in television' tells you to relax, you relax.

Leno? really?

ION, I met Norman Lear last night. He's very sprightly for 85. I wanted to ask him what he thought about the strike, but I thought it might be tacky, so I didn't.

I wanted to ask him what he thought about the strike, but I thought it might be tacky, so I didn't.

You could have said, "What do you inkthay about the ikestray?"

Leno? really?

I was paraphrasing the quote, but yeah. That's what the quote said. Methinks Mr. Leno's power has been exaggerated.

I don't think the WGA is helping itself a whole lot in the PR battle, though. They've not done enough publicly to embrace IASTE, and show support for crew.

It's all stupidgreedycorporations! They've done little to combat the image of stupidgreedywriters.

It doesn't seem like it should be difficult to combat that image, and to embrace the crew. The NFL does a better job with player image, and AFAIK, JJ Abrams et al haven't been caught in dogfighting rings or spousal abuse accusations.

Sports entertainment tends to be much more transparent with the pay, and the media that lives off it tends to be supportive of the enormous salaries earned by marquee players, since they're the money-makers bringing the crowds into the stadiums wearing Offical Merchandise.

The argument is that there are few humans able to do what they do, athetically, and therefore they are being paid in good old supply and demand terms.

There are few people who can do what Tim, Joss, at al can do, and they're to be paid accordingly.

Still, it's difficult to argue from an exploitation viewpoint (which is what the WGA is doing) when the public faces of their campaigns have things like 20 million dollar development deals.

I don't know how to solve that disconnect in a soundbite. Any ideas?

Something like "It's not what Beckham is making, it's what [fill in name of second string soccer starter] is making"?