Ladies and gentlemen...do yourselves a favor and get to know Don Draper, Roger Sterling, Pete Campbell, and JOOOAAANNN!!!

I was under the impression that the WGA agreed not to picket the telecast because they wouldn't be showing any footage. But there were clips-a-plenty (the only thing that made it watchable). Did they fake-out the WGA? Or did I get it wrong?

http://unitedhollywood.blogspo t.com/

http://www.thepodosphere.com

The first one is some WGA members staying on top of this thing, and they're doing an amazing job. See the article called "Hard Ball and Awards Shows," and take a look at the responses to that post. The latter is my blog, and I wrote about the GG's. See the last couple of paragraphs.

In other news, I am very glad Juno got nothing. Just as I am glad TWBB was virtually shut out.

Oh, and if you don't even know what Mad Men is, this might not be the site for you.

America has voted and he is NOT the one that we want.

The people who hated JUNO found it to be too precocious.

Hmmm.

Smart or too smart. What's a fella to do?!

That said, I would probably have voted for No Country as best film overall. I was happy to see that Atonement won for best score--the score was amazing.

One would think the Globey people would have watched it, though...

Now, on to my normal talkback persona.

Yes, I would far prefer to see AMPAS hand out their hardware too. But again, it ain't the WGA that's the snag here. AMPTP ("Another Money Pinching Tiny Penis" according to Kathy Griffin) refuses to even come back to the table. The WGA signed an interim today Media Rights Capital, which does scripted stuff primarily for the Internet. That deal in particular, because it's primarily a new media company that doesn't have other channels of distribution of any note, really proves the WGA's position that their requests are reasonable. Now if one company makes a deal, that could be a fluke. Or a company run by a WGA member. Two? Well, Harvey's a competitive so and so. I think the WGA's up to four now, and negotiations are ongoing with a number of other companies, including Lions Gate if I had to guess.

And by the way, the WGA cannot and is not shutting down the Oscars. All they can do is boycott, picket, and ask others like the members of SAG not to cross the picket line. AMPAS is free to throw an awards show. I'm sure Mary Hart and Billy Bush and the entire on-air staffs of E!,The TV Guide Channel, Access Hollywood, and Entertainment Tonight will be more than happy to to read off a list of winners' names. Oh, and Mike Huckabee. He supports the writers but hasn't yet figured out that means you're not actually supposed to cross their picket line.

I've read some speculation that the studios and the networks are using the strike as their excuse to apply "shock doctrine" radical restructuring to their business models and corporate culture. Oh, and to terminate all sorts of development deals they wanted out of and to fire literally thousands of people (1,000 at Warners this week we fear). Naomi Klein wrote a great book about this process called "Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism".

This is from today's Hollywood Reporter headlines: "CBS Paramount Network TV, 20th Century Studios, Warner Bros. TV and Universal Media Studios on Monday terminated overall deals under the so-called force majeure provision." ABC had already terminated a bunch of its deals.

If you want to write letters to the microdicks who are holding the Oscars hostage and exploiting the strike to make management changes they didn't have the testicular fortitude to make otherwise, try Peter Chernin, Les Moonves, Jeff Zucker, Bob Iger, and the rest of the uber-rich who head up the top member companies of the AMPTP. They should hear from their customers, people who are not part of the industry, just the fans whose dollars and support they rely on.

The Oscar talk is about whether the show will air because of the strike. It's gonna look like a news conference (Golden Globes redeux) if the AMPTP doesn't get reasonable.

I can't even tell you which network is supposed to air the Oscars this year, but they stand to lose tens of millions of $$$ directly from not having the telecast, and there's possibly a $100m + hit to the studios in lost publicity for their nominated and winning content.

But until we see them change their minds, they've done their math and they're okay with these losses. And they're okay with the hundreds of millions the Los Angeles has lost so far with the shutdown of production. Global warming hasn't reached the bloodstreams of these guys.

In other words, Mr. Stewart will be working with noted improvisers like Mary Hart and Billy Bush.