News from the Strike Lines - Day 2

From Deadline Hollywood Daily:

Perhaps the Biggest News is that strike captains are exchanging emails claiming WGA president Patric Verrone is privately saying "an ex-President" wants to get involved in the negotiations. Don't jump to any conclusions. Sure, ex-Screen Actors Guild president Ronald Reagan is still dead. But one of #41 George Bush's best friends is Jerry Weintraub, the Ocean's Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen producer based at Warner. (Remember, Verrone didn't specify which side...) Jimmy Carter owes his presidency to the very early political and financial support of the legendary Lew Wasserman at MCA/Universal. And then Bill Clinton still has a coupla pals in Hollywood. Those same emails quote Verrone as saying that the AMPTP is still refusing to let Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in on the mediation. (Meanwhile, we learned today that Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger is declining to do anything to help. Or else he's holding out for a stunt double.)

The Big News of WGA Strike Day 2 is actually an announcement of what's going to happen on Day 3: that the Writers Guild Of America has organized 75 of television's top showrunners to gather en masse and join their fellow union members walking the picket line between 9 and 11 AM Wednesday at the main gate of Disney/ABC Studios at Burbank's West Alameda Avenue. Not only is this intended as a photo opp but even more so as a demonstration of strength. After all, WGA is counting on all these striking showrunners to shut down TV primetime production at the studios and networks.

Ellen Returns to Work
Ellen DeGeneres just came back and taped Friday's show and here's how she addressed the writer's strike. Tonight, I was slipped a mini-transcript of what she says:

"I’ve got to say this is a strange show for me to do. This is weird. Weird. It’s a weird show. Channeling Johnny Carson all of a sudden. [Imitates Carson] “Very Weird. Weird. Weird.” Here’s what the deal is. It’s 'sweeps', which is a very important time in television. That’s when you do your best shows, your funniest material, you pull out all the stops and you’re doing everything you can because you want everybody watching. Now at this moment, we’re in the middle of this strike. There’s a writer’s strike going on, and here in Los Angeles it’s a huge story. I don’t know where you live, but it’s a huge story in Los Angeles. I want to say I love my writers. I love them. In honor of them today, I’m not going to do a monologue. I support them and hope that they get everything they’re asking for. And I hope it works out soon. In the meantime, people have traveled across the country. They’ve made plans. They’re here. I want to do everything I can to make your trip enjoyable and give you a show. Otherwise you’d just be wandering around and circling Bob Hope Drive.

NBC - I'm told that most of the cast of ER were slated to picket at 3:30 PM outside the main Gate 2 of Warner Bros Studios. John Stamos, Maura Tierney, Mekhi Phifer, Parminder Nagra, Linda Cardellini, and Scott Grimes were to walk the line alongside the show’s writing staff. "This is a very powerful showing of SAG support," one of the show's execs emailed me.

A straight-from-the-picketing-line video on YouTube featuring the sardonic strikers from The Office: "You're watching this on the Internet -- a thing that pays us zero dollars."

ABC - Desperate Housewives was forced to shut down a location shoot today because the picketers disrupted the location shoot in Toluca Lake today. Meanwhile DH creator Marc Cherry has joined the picket line, very publicly, and production on ABC's hit show will be shutting down.

ABC picket chant of the day: "We write the story-a / for Eva Longoria".

Sandra Oh of ABC's Grey's Anatomy is honoring the picket line. I'm told the show won't finish Episode 411.

CBS - There was a plan outside CBS today to "make studio and network executives drive over the dead bodies of WGA members to go to and from their offices" The chalk outlines of writers were going to line the sidewalks there and other places, like turning the stars on Hollywood's Walk of Fame into the "Walk Of Shame". "This is our homage to CSI and all the other shows now halted in the strike," I'm told. "We won't give up this fight ... not over our dead bodies!"

Lily Tomlin and Albert Brooks walked the line at CBS Radford Studios, where the noise level from all the honking is pissing off everyone. A woman from an office building came over to the strike captain and asked if he could stop the cars from honking. ( "We support you guys totally - but we can't hear ourselves think!") Lots of support from passing cars, including a Hansen Soda truck that pulled up to Radford and unloaded tons of free soda for the writers. Also, a CBS Channel 9 news truck pulled up at Radford and the driver asked how could he help. He told the strikers that the news writers at Channel 9 were all wearing T-shirts supporting the WGA strike.

Strikers at Sony picketed close to an executive building. The line drew honking from passing motorists. I'm told that, around 11:45 a.m., Culver City police appeared without warning and ticketed a car for sounding their horn in support of strikers. The cop car doubled back, parked in front of the Sony gate, then informed picketers "in a blatantly intimidating tone" that there was a complaint about the noise, and that they were going to ticket anyone who honked. "The message was clear -- leave the gate or innocent people would be penalized. Before we could even process the shock, another hapless WGA supporter tapped their car horn. True to their threat, the officers took off after the offending vehicle. This time one of our writers had the presence of mind to chase after the cop car, and offered to pay the ticket for the motorist."

I'm hearing anecdotes how striking writers all over Hollywood are ratting out higher-ups on their own TV shows to the WGA to the point where the atmosphere of paranoia is getting quite toxic on series still in production. When this walkout is over, it may take a long while (or a lot of group therapy) for the camaraderie on some shows to get back to normal.

At Disney today, Greg Berlanti, the showrunner of three Disney-owned ABC one-hours, joined today's march. So did Sean Cassidy. So did Jay Leno who's ubiquitous pulling up in that classic motorcycle-with-sidecar and passing out donut holes..

Here's an interview with screenwriter/director/producer/mogul Judd Apatow about the WGA strike as he walked the picket line set up at the Sony gates. "I'll be out here a fair amount," he said. "We're in the final stages of sound mixing Walk Hard. But all the writing work is done and the sound mix is actually done this week, so I have plenty of time to give."

Several writers walking the line and who have kids at expensive Westside private schools discussed wearing red strike shirts when they drop off and pick up their kids as a means of sending a message to studio execs and moguls who are dropping and picking up their own kids at the same schools.