Comedy Central stars Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are going back to work Jan. 7 without their writers despite a possible continuance of the writers strike, bringing the total count to five stars now willing to potentially cross the picket line.

They join NBC’s Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel, who are set to return by the first week of January. CBS late night talk show host David Letterman’s production company plans to meet with the Writers Guild on Friday to seek an interim deal to come back with his writers next month.

Interesting footnote in the Stewart, Colbert return: They’re both WGA members, who are barred from writing any material, even for themselves. Maybe they’ll mime the show?

Comedy Central statement: ‘The Daily Show with Jon Stewart’ and ‘The Colbert Report’ will resume production on January 7 with both shows returning to air that night without their respective writing staffs.  The January 7 return follows a scheduled two-week, end-of-year hiatus that was previously built into the shows’ production calendars.  We continue to hold out hope for a swift resolution to the current stalemate that will enable the shows to be complete again.

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert: We would like to return to work with our writers. If we cannot, we would like to express our ambivalence, but without our writers we are unable to express something as nuanced as ambivalence.

(Reuters)

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