“Truthiness” Set to Return to Comedy Central: Colbert and Stewart Will Reportedly Wing it

Comedy Central announced late yesterday that two of their most popular programs, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report, will be returning to the air after the new year.

There's one catch though. The WGA writers' strike is not over, and that means Colbert and Stewart will be operating sans writing teams. This is especially daunting since both shows rely heavily on scripts and monologues. Add to that the fact that Colbert and Stewart are both members of the WGA, and one wonders how in the hell they're going to make this work.

Speculation abounds after the jump!

Speaking about the news yesterday, Colbert and Stewart issued a joint statement:

"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."
Well, at least they have a sense of humor about this. The WGA didn't find the announcement as amusing, issuing their own statement:

"Comedy Central forcing Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert back on the air will not give the viewers the quality shows they've come to expect. The only way to get the writing staffs back on the job is for the AMPTP companies to come back to the table prepared to negotiate a fair deal with the Writers Guild."

According to insiders, trademark features like Stewart's "Headlines" and Colbert's "The Word" will obviously have to take a break since they're heavily scripted.

Instead, it appears the shows will try to work around the missing writers (and the guild rules that bar anything that's traditionally the domain of scribes) by relying heavily on pre-taped segments from the field.

One thing is clear, while these shows will make a return, it could be rough going until the strike ends.

Let's hope that is soon.