Fall TV Blog

The writers’ strike may not be over, but the days of a bearded Conan O’Brien are gone. This week the Late Night host showed off his smooth new look, calling it “a huge story.” But Conan, who first announced in December that he’d stop shaving in solidarity with the striking writers, made sure to pay tribute to his beard with a video from the day he returned to work and first showed it off.

After a two-month hiatus, Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien will return to TV January 2—despite the on-going writers’ strike.

“Unfortunately, now with the New Year upon us, I am left with a difficult decision,” O’Brien said in a statement Monday, released through NBC, about his show Late Night with Conan O’Brien.

“Either go back to work and keep my staff employed, or stay dark, and allow 80 people, many of whom have worked for me for 14 years, to lose their jobs,” O’Brien’s statement read. “An unwritten version of Late Night, though not desirable, is possible— and no one has to be fired.”
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Photo: Dimitrios Kambouris/WireImage

Is there a correlation between the WGA strike and misplacing your Schick Quattro razor? For David Letterman and Conan O’Brien there is. The two late-night talk show hosts have taken to growing “strike” beards. While Letterman is sporting what we call the “full hairy,” O’Brien (who joked in early December that he’s been growing his since the strike of 1988) has something of a dusting of cinnamon scruff, like the first snowfall of the season.

• Late night hosts Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien are considering airing new episodes starting in January whether or not the writers strike is resolved. Going back on the air without their scribes would be no laughing matter. Literally.

• 30 Rock has blended the show with American Express commercials, thanks to “podbusters”—a.k.a., short segments starring the 30 cast that have nothing to do with that episode’s plot. We remember watching the last podbuster on our Sony 52-inch LCD television—the picture quality was fantastic!

• A new brand of DVR can hold 2,300 hours of programming. That’s almost enough to record all the fights on The View this year.

• Andre Birleanu, a contestant on America’s Most Smartest Model, claims that VH1 is destroying his career by forbidding him from responding to allegations that he molested two women. “They tell me not to say anything, but then they don’t stand up for me,” said Birleanu, who pouted—and was promptly offered a fragrance campaign.

Photo: Kevin Foley/NBC; Timothy White/NBC

He’s already agreed to personally cover the salaries of his non-writing staff during the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike—and now Conan O’Brien is taking another move in solidarity with the strikers by . . . growing a beard! Calling it his “strike beard,” O’Brien jokes, “I started growing mine during the strike of 1988—not a lot of hormones!” The comic also sends his holiday greetings—even to those who celebrate Hanukkah!—in his humorous video message. Watch it here. —Brian Orloff

Photo: Scott Gries/Getty

As the Writers Guild of America strike drags on, Conan O’Brien is bringing some holiday cheer to his late-night talk show staff, pledging to cover the salaries of his non-writing production workers—nearly 80 people in all.

NBC, which airs the comedian’s talk show Late Night with Conan O’Brien, agreed to cover the salaries through the end of November, and O’Brien, 44, will personally pick up the tab for the foreseeable future, according to Variety.

O’Brien is said to be grateful for the loyalty many of those staffers have shown over the years. Many of them are expected to accompany him to the West Coast when he takes over as host of The Tonight Show in 2009.

Late Night with Conan O’Brien has been in reruns, along with the other late-night talk shows, since the WGA went on strike Nov. 5.

On Nov. 7, at a benefit in New York for wounded Iraq war veterans, O’Brien said, “I do have some good news about the writers’ strike. If it continues, there will not be a third Deuce Bigalow movie.” —Tim Nudd

Photo: Sthanlee B. Mirador/Shooting Star