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When the going gets tough, the tough get folding!

The backbone of a Jellyfish. A few writers have a temper tantrum about AI so the entire staff of the show gets put out of work for a year. That seems reasonable.


Hey writers! You're a bunch of selfish losers...go f-ck yourself.


Hey, I'm just kidding. Please stop picketing outside the offices of the Spritzler Report. Ok, ok, I'll shut things down for a while. Just don't hurt me.


Drew Barrymore Halts New Season Until Writers Strike Is Resolved

Talk show host has drawn criticism for decision to resume taping amid labor dispute

By Ginger Adams Otis, WSJ

Updated Sept. 17


Television host Drew Barrymore, who faced backlash for taping new episodes of her daytime show amid a monthslong writers’ strike, said Sunday that she would pause the show’s premiere.


The show was set to return to the air Monday. Barrymore said she would now wait until the industry’s labor issues with the Writers Guild of America are resolved.


“I have no words to express my deepest apologies to anyone I have hurt and, of course, to our incredible team who works on the show and has made it what it is today,” Barrymore wrote on Instagram. “We really tried to find our way forward. And I truly hope for a resolution for the entire industry very soon.”


CBS Media Ventures, which produces “The Drew Barrymore Show,” said in a statement Sunday that it supports Barrymore’s decision.


“[We] understand how complex and difficult this process has been for her,” the statement said.


The reversal is a sign of the far-reaching impacts the writers’ strike, along with one involving actors, are having across the entertainment industry, even in areas that possibly could resume work. It also highlights the power that striking actors, writers and their fans wield in an industry trying to weigh union solidarity against the need to restart projects so crew and other workers get paid.


Barrymore, who has three union writers on her show, resumed taping in New York last week. Striking workers picketed outside the studio in protest. The National Book Foundation, which presents the annual National Book Awards, rescinded its invitation to Barrymore to host the event.


At the time, Barrymore said that she owned the choice to go back to work despite the labor dispute and that she hoped it would bring people together. The last season of her show finished taping in April, before the strike began. In May, she dropped out of hosting the MTV movie awards in an act of solidarity.


The WGA called for an industry strike in May, shutting down most writers rooms for movies and TV shows. Productions went dark, including daytime and late-night talk shows that depend on fast-thinking writers to make jokes out of the day’s news.


Initially, the strike unified Hollywood creatives. Celebrities held signs on the WGA picket lines.


Talk show host Bill Maher also announced last week that he is reconfiguring his show to run without writers.


HBO’s “Real Time With Bill Maher” will return as a panel discussion with the host and guests, but without the comedian’s monologue and other written segments.



Union members picketing outside ‘The Drew Barrymore Show’ last week in New York. PHOTO: ALEXI ROSENFELD/GETTY IMAGES

“I love my writers, I am one of them, but I’m not prepared to lose an entire year and see so many below-the-line people suffer so much,” Maher said in a statement.


The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the coalition representing the major producers of content including Netflix, Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery, said last week that WGA has reached out to ask for a meeting to move negotiations forward. The group said it is working to schedule a meeting.


WGA, which has 11,500 television and movie writers in its ranks, is hoping to negotiate contracts with Hollywood studios that include better pay, higher residual payments and protections against artificial intelligence’s encroachment on the movie industry.


Write to Ginger Adams Otis at Ginger.AdamsOtis@wsj.com


Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8


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