Tonight Show Crew the Latest Strike Victims

Angry staff laid off by NBC despite promises from Jay Leno
By Katherine Thompson,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 1, 2007 8:19 AM CST
Tonight Show Crew the Latest Strike Victims
Joe Medeiros, head writer of "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno," walks a Writers Guild of America picket line outside Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, Calif., Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2007. The impact of a strike by television and film writers was becoming more evident as the walkout entered its third day....   (Associated Press)

Some 80 non-writer staff members of the Tonight Show were shocked to be handed pink slips by NBC yesterday; they'd been banking on assurances by host Jay Leno, shortly after the strike started 4 weeks ago, that their jobs were safe. Conan O'Brien, whose staff was also furloughed yesterday, has said he will pay their salaries for at least a week, but Leno hasn't made the same offer.

Angry Tonight Show crew members say Leno's comments had prevented them from seeking other employment during the strike. "When the most powerful man in TV tells you to relax, then you relax," one explained. Leno was reportedly working on alternative show formats that wouldn't require a writing staff, but such plans seem to have fallen through. (More Hollywood writers' strike stories.)

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