In the absence of writers, compared to other late-night hosts, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have an especially tough job. Jay Leno, David Letterman, and Jimmy Kimmel have ample reserves of ad-libbable schtick: They can talk to the audience, prowl the streets, film some guy in the deli next door. Conan O'Brien can dance on a desk or break credibly into song. (He could stare blankly into the camera for five minutes and it would probably be hilarious.) But "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report," which returned to Comedy Central Monday night, hew so closely to the news that they seem to demand something pre-written.
So the writerless episodes of both shows will depend on their hosts' considerable ad-libbing skills - and the hard work of the video producers and graphics folk. "The Daily Show" used video on overdrive; Stewart partly relied on clips of young Arnold Schwarzenegger in "Conan the Barbarian." Colbert went repeatedly to the video archive, showing footage of himself gabbing with Mike Huckabee, eating grits, and making a string of anti-union comments. "You know what cures childhood obesity?" he said in one clip. "A 19-hour shift at the mills."
Labor relations accounted for much of the content on Monday, since Stewart and Colbert, like their fellow TV hosts, are intent on showing support for their striking writers. True to form, each started off by skewering the state of late-night TV itself. Stewart, whose arched eyebrows are a huge comedic tool, mocked the Letterman and O'Brien "strike beards" by wearing a faux "writers' strike solidarity unibrow." Colbert, meanwhile, opened his show wearing a ZZ Top-style beard. And in a reference to the controversy over Leno's rule-breaking, pre-written monologues, Colbert pretended to feed pages into a paper shredder.
In his own quasi-monologue, Stewart gave lip service to politics, pretending he'd predicted that "the Iowa caucus will go to the black guy and the guy who doesn't believe in evolution!" But at a time when the presidential primary is chock-full of humor fodder - Hillary Clinton's emotional moment! The merciless attacks in last weekend's debates! - Stewart spent most of his time riffing on the mechanics of the strike. His guest was a labor relations professor from Cornell University.
It's likely that Stewart will stick to this path as the strike persists: He'll be quasi-journalistic, treating us to longer-than-usual interviews with topical guests, alternating between serious questions and snide quips. ("Do most negotiations end with a hug?" he asked on Monday.) Colbert, at least, can hide behind the pomposity of his onscreen persona. On Monday, he interviewed political journalist/blogger Andrew Sullivan with glee:
"I think we're sick of red-blue polarization," Sullivan said
"Uh, we?" Colbert replied. "Do you have a mouse in your pocket? Because I am not sick of it."
It was funny - the delivery helped, I promise - and blissfully true to character. So long as Colbert can find guests willing to cross the picket lines, he should be able to bluster his way across the high wire.
Still, it's probably a thousand times harder than it looks, and Colbert made it clear that he was suffering from his scriptlessness. He announced his signature segment, a Bill O'Reilly knockoff called "The Word," then gestured wildly toward half of the TV screen, as if willing the words to arrive. They never did. And without them, the show won't be the same. At a time when real news is as rich as ever, these half-denuded shows don't fully satisfy. Maybe that's the ultimate statement Stewart and Colbert can make about the importance of writers: tantalize us with possibilities, without actually making the jokes.
Joanna Weiss can be reached at weiss@globe.com. For more on TV, go to www.viewerdiscretion.net
