Hire FCN!

If you watch televised news, you may have seen the picket lines forming in front of the formidable buildings of Hollywood production houses as a few hundred writers went on strike this week. If you don't watch the televised news, you may have read the same in any of the plethora of news articles on the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike.

If you don't read the news (an understandable sentiment given how dark most news stories are anyway) and instead get your take on the world exclusively from FCN (equally dark, I'm afraid), here's what's happening in Tinsel Town:

500 hundred people with super cushy jobs and excellent benefits, some making as much as $5 million a year, are upset with the current state of TV and film writing. It's unclear exactly what they don't like about it, but they're really fired up. Control central for the WGA (7000 West Third Street, Los Angeles, CA 90048) printed off a bunch of snazzy signs for these disgruntled millionaires to tote around and single handedly ground the humor, film and TV writing industry to a halt.

For writers, the slogans the strikers came up with were downright pedestrian, almost like generic AFL-CIO fare; they were the kind of prefab garbage the automakers might use. One would think writers would have a message that is at least halfway creative like "WE WRITERS BE STRIKERS," but the two signs I've seen so far say nothing more than "ON STRIKE" (doh!) and "UNFAIR IS UNFUNNY." Actually, sir, we in the real world find your disappointment with a $400,000 paycheck to be the height of hilarity. It's something like the laugh we get from seeing a pie thrown in Curly's face.

Here at FCN, we think the only thing we think is atrocious is having the funny stuff pulled off the TV. As avowed derelicts, television content is very important to us and the negative impact of the WGA's decision is reverberating across the fruited plain. Jay Leno had to broadcast a rerun last night and his jokes, which were just barely funny the first time, came off even flatter. David Letterman was forced to actually think for himself and Stephen Colbert held his dumb look for much too long.

Speaking directly to the strikers, your strike has a ripple effect throughout the entire entertainment industry. We all know Jessica Alba can't say anything smart without a writer; how dare you expose her? What will Patrick Dempsey be without a script? How will Ang Lee churn out his garbage movies without a half decent writer? I'll wager George Clooney will be a shadow of his Sexiest Man Alive glory without your eloquence; do you even care about the Cloonster and his injured girlfriend? Will you force all of Hollywood into a vicious choice between Larry David style improve and reality TV? What a terrible dichotomy! You ought to be ashamed of yourselves!

As usual, FCN comes to the rescue (dun dun dun!) and has a perfect solution for all involved. Why not hire the FCN staff to do the humor writing? We aren't members of any union and would happily work for half the price of the WGA folks, although the studios would have to give us some free DVDs and Mommy G would have to approve the projects. We've shown we can write great love stories, action adventure and everything in between. We've done character development, thematic work and educational. We have even dabbled in current events humor, a resume item that we would highlight when pitching our skills to the late night humorists.

Plus we're unknown. You wouldn't have to give us top billing in the credits and it will be a few years before we begin making extreme demands and start going Hollywood. Just give us a chance and we will prove to be as jocose as any WGA writer. You can take that to the bank - or at least the picket line.

So come on, WGA. We're waiting.