At a point when TV viewers are already saying goodbye to many of primetime's biggest hits, whether due to season finales airing or shows facing cancellation news, few things sound less appealing than the entertainment industry's writers strike that began on the morning of May 2, following a breakdown in talks between the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. In the hours after news of the strike made the rounds, Hollywood and other entertainment hubs started taking action, with late night talks shows among the first to temporarily pack it in. But while Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon and more will be absent from our TVs in the days ahead, Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld doesn’t seem to be going anywhere yet.
As a major cable rival to those on the broadcast side of late night talk shows, the eponymous Gutfeld! is currently set to deliver at least one new episode long after the rest of the competition has gone dark, with more expected to happen assuming everything goes smoothly enough during the May 2 telecast. And there’s no big reason to think it wouldn’t, since Greg Gutfeld & Co. aren’t exactly coming at this all rebellious as if it was a pirate radio situation.
Rather, the apparent reasoning for Gutfeld! maintaining its nightly airing is due to the comedian host and his staff not actually being card-carrying WGA members, according to Deadline. Which by all means should make it quite easy for them to continue working amidst an industry-wide strike, without much worrying over how long the strike will last.
The Fox News hit, as it goes for cable, has a far smaller production team than other late night shows. Beyond Gutfeld, the writing team features stand-up comedians Joe Machi and Joe DeVito, with the roast-ready Nick Di Paolo also a friend of the show. If it’s true that none of the above are WGA members who necessarily need to step away from contributing, then viewers might not even be able to tell that the eps are happening during a strike. As opposed to the still comedically brilliant way Conan O’Brien took up airtime during the 2008 strike, such as seeing how long he could spin his wedding ring on his desk.
Here’s the current list of late night regulars who will be off the air due to the WGA strike:
- The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
- The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
- Jimmy Kimmel Live!
- Late Night with Seth Meyers
- The Daily Show
- Real Time with Bill Maher
- Last Week Tonight
Saturday Night Live's season finale will also potentially being affected, which hopefully doesn't water down Kenan Thompson's excitement about Pete Davidson's first hosting gig. Earlier, Deadline reported that there are different possibilities being discussed for how SNL could go about handling its upcoming closer, and Davidson bemoaned the turn of events when appearing on Jimmy Fallon's final pre-strike episode. Maybe they should give the Gutfeld! team a call.
Gutfeld! delivering new episodes against a slew of repeats and pivot-programming could give the show a huge boost, which would be just the kind of good news that Fox News needs in the aftermath of Tucker Carlson’s shocking exit, and amidst the network dealing with a second gigantic lawsuit after settling with Dominion Voting Systems.
And now we wait to see how many other shows hitting the 2023 TV schedule will be affected negatively by the strike.
