Today's Evil Beet Gossip

Tonight Show Lays of Non-Writing Staff

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The strike’s hitting hard, kids. The Tonight Show laid off its nonwriting staff today. These are the people who don’t make anywhere near as much as the writers: these are the makeup artists, the grips, the props guys, etc. Very sad.

The network confirmed Friday that nearly 80 nonwriting members of The Tonight Show staff have been laid off, as NBC previously said would happen if no arrangement could be made to get either Jay Leno or a guest back into the host’s chair by the end of the month.

Along with Conan O’Brien, David Letterman, Jimmy Kimmel and Craig Ferguson—all card-carrying Writers Guild of America members like himself—Leno has refused to cross WGA picket lines and his show has been in repeats since the strike began Nov. 5.

NBC had originally planned to give the production staff, technicians and other below-the-line employees the boot two weeks ago, it extended the firing deadline to Nov. 30, presumably to avoid looking like the Grinch who stole Christmas and Thanksgiving.

This sucks.

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