DEFAMER: How did you hear that TRL was going off the air?
DAVE: I think I saw it on, like, Huffington Post or something. There wasn't a 3am phone call or anything like that.

DEFAMER: How did you feel when you heard the news?
DAVE: I hadn't watched [TRL] in a long time, but it was kind of a bummer, you know? It was a funny show where a lot of people who I still work with got their start. It'll be missed.

DEFAMER: Had you heard any rumors about its demise? Did you see this coming?
DAVE: I'm a little bit out of their demographic right now, so I hadn't heard anything. I check in every now and then, but I don't recognize a soul who's on it anymore. Damien [Fahey] does an awesome job, but I have no idea who the artists are at all. Like, I don't get Tokio Hotel. I don't understand why they're trying so hard to get them into them in the running. But yeah, I kind of thought that it might be coming. In 1999, 2000, there were a few huge stars. Now, there are a ton of semi-big stars. There's nobody that every thirteen-year-old girl can agree that they love, that they'd skip school and hop on the train and stand in Times Square to look at through a window.

DEFAMER: But what about a show like 106 & Park, which I think is still BET's highest-rated show? How can a music video show like that succeed while TRL is cancelled?
DAVE: Yeah, I don't understand how it doesn't make sense to at least keep it on. I mean, it's MTV's last music show, it's like their little clubhouse. It seems like the kind of thing they would want to keep going on forever, but then, what do I know? I mean, I just saw my first episode of The Hills last night, so what the fuck do I know?

DEFAMER: How had you managed to avoid it all this time?
DAVE: You know, it was just total, willful avoidance. I never saw Laguna Beach, either. It's almost more entertaining to watch people try to explain The Hills to you than to watch The Hills, because they don't know why they watch it. They talk about the people like they know them. It really is more fun to watch a grown man or woman defend their position as a Hills watcher.

DEFAMER: Is that indicative of how MTV has changed? We did a feature a few weeks ago called "7 MTV-Defining Stars Who Wouldn't Be Allowed on MTV Anymore"...
DAVE: ...Yeah, I read that!

DEFAMER: So do you agree with our premise that there's no niche there anymore for the sorts of people who put the network on the map?
DAVE: Yeah, I definitely agree. This is, like, a whole big conspiracy thing, but the way the Nielsen system works doesn't reward things like MTV used to put on. You know what I mean? Like, any music video show, you'd tune in for five minutes and if something came on that you didn't like, you'd change the channel. So ratings would be really low for some of the interesting programming that MTV used to put on. Now they do these things that aren't really challenging, but you're almost beat into submission in the first five minutes, like, "I guess I should see how this ends." You don't remember it when it's over, but you've watched it and that's all that matters. And it's a business! Unfortunately, they have to sell advertising.

DEFAMER: Was MTV always that ruthless about programming, though?
DAVE: You know, even the lowest-rated shows when I was there, people would talk about. Years later, they would remember it. So anecdotally, you know that people are actually watching, but the ratings never really bore that out.

DEFAMER: Is there anything on MTV you still watch?
DAVE: Listen, I will watch The Real World/Road Rules Challenge until the day I die. Big, hot dudes with their shirts off yelling at each other and getting drunk? For some reason, that never gets old. Like, I will watch CT take his shirt off and yell at somebody all fucking day. If there was a channel that was just that, I would watch it. But yeah, I don't love The Hills. Every single Dance Crew looks exactly the same to me. A lot of people I love still work there and the ratings are really good and people are still talking about it, but I'm 37 years old.

DEFAMER: But MTV used to be at least a little countercultural, didn't it? Even when they were programming shows like Singled Out, there'd be something like Tabitha Soren...
DAVE: And even things like Singled Out had Chris Hardwick, who's hilarious, and Jenny McCarthy, who's hilarious. They were sort of in on the joke a little bit, and right now, there's a lot of stuff that maybe takes itself too seriously. Like, Lauren Conrad probably has demands of what she will and won't do, and that's ridiculous... I wish that MTV2 would sort of take on that mantle of, "Here's our programming and here's people who love music," but it just seems like it's reruns of The Hills.

DEFAMER: When we posted about the TRL cancellation, some of our commenters started posting some old YouTube videos of their favorite moments...
DAVE: Oh, no way!

DEFAMER: ...so what would your favorite moment have been, if you could post it?
DAVE: You know, the really funny shit happened behind the scenes. My favorite thing I saw in probably the whole time I worked for MTV was there was this whole hour devoted to Prince, which of course he showed up fifty minutes late for. He flew in with this huge phalanx of guards, hot chicks with their tits out, and one of the biggest of the big dudes who was around him had this big jar with a posted note on it that said "Swear Jar." If you swore around Prince, since he was a Jehovah's Witness, you had to put in a dollar. That didn't make it to the air, but I just thought, "Man, that's funny stuff!"

It had multiple hosts over the years, but it's Carson Daly with whom it will forever be associated: A little-known Bay Area DJ dropped into the gig of a lifetime, he instantly became the fantasy dream boyfriend of billions of American teenage girls—and very nearly avoided early tragedy by calling off his engagement to Tara Reid. Variety reports the show "will depart in mid-November with a two-hour Saturday-afternoon special," replaced by the more popular Feedback New MTV, or FNMTV. We salute its departure with one of its greatest-ever moments: Part 2 of Mariah Carey's infamous TRL meltdown, when she called the show naked from her shower, shattering untold eardrums along the way with a sustained high G.

• MTV to retire 'TRL' [Variety]
• TRL [MTV]

[T]he network confirm for me that this week it fired 9 Last Call employees, including 3 of the four writers whose contracts ran out during the strike. (The one scribe kept on still has 4 weeks remaining on his pact. The other 6 employees trimmed worked in other departments.)

NBC sources insist that the Last Call budget cuts weren't done because of the strike and would have made regardless of the WGA labor action. This, after the network threatened to cancel the 5-year-old show altogether unless Carson went back to work.

Certainly, Daly has proven that even with zero writers, he's capable of carrying an solid hour of insomnitainment, and this setback is hardly going to stop him dutifully hoisting his head up from his desk at every applause cue to introduce the next riveting installment of "People Who Still Work For Me Theater presents Gina the receptionist listing the Presidents of the United States in reverse alphabetical order! What's that? Oh. I'm informed Gina packed her desk up earlier this afternoon and was escorted off the premises by two NBC Universal security guards. Anyone know any jokes?"

• Carson Daly's 'Last Call' Hosed By NBC [DHD]

Confronted with a question about how things are going without his writers, Daly admits that "none of us are happy to be [in a graveyard- shift hell without people who can whip up jokes to make the time pass more quickly]," but sadly refused to take our operative's bait when offered a chance to weigh in on whether Leno's show has been adversely affected by the absence of his own gag-writing staff.

• Watch Video
• Previously: Striking Writers Disrupt Carson Daly Taping, Ruining His Talk Show Christmas [Defamer]

Writers, stop producing those "Speechless" videos. Fred Armisen, take a breather. Your propaganda is here. Simply ply a lowly scribe with the meth necessary to get though an entire one of these things each and every night, have him pull the most soporific longueurs, and post it on YouTube.

• [Last Call With Carson Daly]

Last night a group of striking writers, including a couple of recognizable names, infiltrated a taping of "Last Call With Carson Daly." The program was wrapping up the final two episodes of the season before going dark for the rest of the year.

During an interview with former NFL great Jerry Rice, a writer pretending to be an audience member heckled Daly, claiming he "needed a writer" to ask better questions. Production assistants and NBC security swooped upon the scribe and escorted him, without resistance, from the building.

A clearly disconcerted Daly asked whether Rice would be willing to start the interview over again, which he did.

After reintroducing Rice to the audience, who replicated their cheers, another incognito writer stood up and loudly declared: "I feel so bad for the striking writers! Can I please leave?" The scribe also pointed out Daly's use of cue cards, plaintively asking who was writing the show now.

NBC security, still expelling the first troublemaker, instantly scrambled back into the studio, then hurriedly ejected three more.

Daly, visibly rattled, appropriately enough had no witty impromptu comments to offer the perplexed audience. Rice was also addled, audibly asking: "What's going on?" A tense Daly responded with a nod, only offering: "I know what this is about."

After that, someone associated with the production took the stage and declared: "Anyone else interrupting the show will be prosecuted." This same person also advised "any other striking writers" in the crowd to "leave now."

Over twenty people scattered throughout the stands rose and dutifully shuffled out. The audience gasped at this. Daly visibly paled.

Ironically, one of this departing group had been awarded a prize moments earlier for being "such a great audience member." The prize was a gift certificate to El Pollo Loco.

Moments later, a traumatized Daly asked Rice whether he'd "mind starting the interview again."

As the production of Last Call shuts down for the holidays, perhaps Daly will finally get a couple of weeks of Yuletide peace; then again, following the unexpected raid on his studio, his vacation may be a tense and paranoid one, where he's too shell-shocked to open his front door and enjoy the singing of some Christmas carolers for fear that some renegade WGA operatives are concealed in their lilting group, ready to torment him with strike chants at his first vulnerable moment.

• Previously: Embattled Carson Daly Returns To The Air, Determined To Save Jobs And Entertain Loyal Insomniac Fan [Defamer]

In the broadcast's early moments, Daly somberly explained why he was he was the first of the nighttime talk-show fraternity to break ranks and go back to his job: an ultimatum from NBC that they'd lay off his staff and replace the show with an infomercial for an amazing rotisserie oven that produces perfectly juicy chickens—each and every time!—if he refused to produce new episodes. (A threat we suspect the network was at least half-hoping he would refuse, lusting after some easy Popeil money.) Above is a clip of Last Call's intital writerless effort, featuring what we assume was the best of the gags suggested on Daly's scab joke hotline.

• Last Call with Carson Daly [NBC.com]
• Previously: Picket-Line Crossing Pioneer Carson Daly Under Fire! [Defamer]

(At least until the idling staff rereads the threateningly vague layoff memo from the network saying, "If your services are needed, we'll contact you.") Meanwhile, TMZ reports that Jimmy Kimmel has been "quietly" paying low-level workers adversely affected by the strike, leaving picket-line-crossing Last Call host Carson Daly, who returns to the air tonight without his writers (but with some great material from his non-union inbox), as the late shift's only potential punching bag.

• Leno to pay 'Tonight' staff after all [Variety]
• Kimmel to Little People — I Got Your Back [TMZ]

"We're disappointed at Carson Daly's decision to return to work. Mr. Daly is not a writer and not a member of the WGA, unlike other late-night hosts Jay Leno, David Letterman, Conan O'Brien, Craig Ferguson, and Jimmy Kimmel, who have all resisted network pressure and honored our writers' picket lines. We're especially appalled at Mr. Daly's call for non-Guild writers to provide him with jokes. We hope he'll change his mind and follow the lead of the other late-night hosts."

As the new shows the embattled host is now shooting aren't scheduled to air until next week, we'll all have to wait to see how he handles the most damaging controversy of his otherwise distinguished run at It's Either This Or I Start Hosting Infomercials About Self-Propelled Vacuum Cleaners...with Carson Daly. Luckily, there's a recent precedent for how to navigate the public backlash of returning to work without one's beloved writers, so we're confident that when Daly chokes up in the middle of babbling incomprehensibly about how terrible being stuck in the middle of such a no-win situation makes him feel, somewhere, a graveyard-shift security guard will look up at a television that only gets passable reception when tuned to NBC, consider the heartfelt words provided for Daly by a compassionate soul in his AOL address book, and tear up in sympathy.

• Previously: Carson Daly Urges Friends And Family To Phone In To His Scab Joke Hotline [Defamer]

In case the missive left its recipients scratching their heads, Daly then goes to the trouble of scripting out a sample message that might have come from his own father, which we've reproduced above. While Daly's innovative approach to filling up the monologue portion of his show has an almost heartwarming, Amish-barn-raising quality to it, we can't say we approve of a tactic that involves turning friends and relatives hoping to lend a hand into unwitting scabs, leaving them susceptible to nighttime devourings by hungry, striking horror writers.

• Carson Daly Seeking Scabs [TSG]

· Warner Bros.' Jeff Robinov gets a promotion or a new title or something. Get excited! [Variety]
· The first installment of the two-part Dancing with the Stars finale is Monday night's top-rated show, an impressive Nielsen performance no doubt boosted by Marie Osmond's terrifying dramatization of a demon-possessed doll trying to murder her unsuspecting playmate. [THR]
· Mark Ruffalo is invited to the Leonardo DiCaprio/Martin Scorcese reteaming party Shutter Island. [THR]

NEW YEAR S EVE WITH CARSON DALY 12/28/05, 10p, Version 5

ACT ONE:

#1: (Carson V/O live shots Times Square)

NEW YORK CITY LIVE IN TIMES SQUARE DECEMBER 31, 2005 11:30 EASTERN STANDARD TIME IN A TRADITION THAT DATES BACK 101 YEARS MORE THAN A MILLION PEOPLE ARE HERE TO WATCH AS A 1,000-POUND BALL OF IRISH WATERFORD CRYSTAL XX STORIES ABOVE THE STREET (megan, peter check bold) — IS DROPPED FROM THE TOP OF ONE TIMES SQUARE GREETING ANOTHER NEW YEAR

More exclusive read along excerpts after the jump!

#2 (Carson O/C welcome)

WELCOME TO NBC S NEW YEAR S EVE I M CARSON DALY WE RE LIVE (-IN A PLACE I VE COME TO ESPECIALLY ENJOY THIS NIGHT-): TIMES SQUARE AT 46TH STREET BETWEEN BROADWAY AND SEVENTH AVENUE IN THE MIDST OF THE LARGEST COLLECTION OF HUMANITY RIGHT NOW ON THE NORTH AMERICAN CONTINENT EVERYONE UNITED UNDER THE NEON

RIGHT UP TO MIDNIGHT AND BEYOND WE LL BE BRINGING YOU ALL THE SIGHTS AND SOUNDS OF THIS UNMATCHED CELEBRATION

IT S A (WEATHER TK) NIGHT TEMPERATURE: TK AND WHAT YOU RE SEEING AROUND ME IS CONTROLLED CHAOS EXPERTLY MANAGED BY (TK POLICE FORCE di ask for press release) OF NEW YORK S FINEST ONLY IN NEW YORK COULD YOU IMAGINE A CROWD THIS ENORMOUS BEING MANAGED, WRANGLED AND PEACEFULLY RELEASED

(SECURITY PROVISIONS TK peter search, pens, measure taken)

BEFORE THE BIG MOMENT NOW TK- MINUTES AWAY WE HAVE A FEW OF OUR OWN

INCLUDING ON OUR OWN STAGE, JUST A FEW STEPS AWAY THE WOMAN WITH THE NUMBER ONE ALBUM IN THE COUNTRY THIS WEEK NATIVE NEW YORKER MARY J. BLIGE HERE WITH US TO PERFORM LIVE [...]

#3 (Carson O/C Melissa the ball???)

BUT FIRST — STANDING BY LIVE RIGHT NOW AT THE COUNTDOWN STAGE, WITH THE IRISHMAN WHO LED THE DESIGN OF THE TIMES SQUARE BALL (TK Brooke, from Ireland?) NBC S MELISSA STARK [...]

#7a (Carson V/O London)

(London)
A LITTLE LESS THAN FIVE HOURS AGO THE WORLD S MOST FAMOUS CLOCK, BIG BEN, ANNOUNCED THE NEW YEAR IN LONDON
(May not need next line, if folo with torch — THE CITY WHICH CELEBRATED IN 2005 THE AWARDING OF THE 2012 SUMMER OLYMPIC GAMES )

#7b (Carson V/O torch relay)

AND TONIGHT IN ITALY THE OLYMPIC TORCH RELAY CONTINUED (Location TK, torchbearer TK) THE ULTIMATE DESTINATION THE OPENING CEREMONY OF THE 20TH OLYMPIC WINTER GAMES FEBRUARY 10, IN TORINO

#7c (Olympic guests????) [...]

IT MAY NOT BE WELL KNOWN EVEN TO NEW YORKERS THAT THE CITY WILL OFFICIALLY HAVE ITS NEW MAYOR ONE MINUTE AFTER MIDNIGHT ON THE COUNTDOWN STAGE BEHIND ME, THE NEWLY RE-ELECTED, HONORABLE MICHAEL J. BLOOMBERG WILL HAVE LOTS OF BUSINESS TONIGHT PRESSING THE BUTTON THAT DROPS THAT BALL THEN A MOMENT LATER, RAISING HIS RIGHT HAND TO BE SWORN IN

Rob—-#8a (Mayor chat Guest of Honor?) [...]

#12 (Carson lead to Johnny VT)

WELCOME BACK AS WE CREEP EVER CLOSER TO 2006 VERY SOON, IT LL BE ALL EYES ON THE BALL

IN THE PAST YEAR, WE LOST A TV GIANT — JOHNNY CARSON BEFORE MOVING TO LOS ANGELES, HE WAS HERE IN NEW YORK WITH THE TONIGHT SHOW, EVERY NEW YEAR S EVE PART OF AN NBC TRADITION GOING BACK SOME SIX DECADES IN THIS EXCLUSIVE CLIP OUR LATENIGHT DEPARTMENT HAS DISCOVERED AND DUSTED OFF, JOHNNY IS JOINED BY HIS USUAL NEW YEAR S COMPANION — NBC S FAMED RADIO ANNOUNCER BEN GRAUER FORTY YEARS AGO, ON THIS VERY NIGHT THE NBC PEACOCK AS YOU LL SEE WAS STILL NOT QUITE FULLY IN LIVING COLOR

#12a (Johnny tape ) [...]

NOTES:
1,000 POUNDS OF IRISH WATERFORD CRYSTAL
600 LIGHTS
96 FLASHING STROBES
72 CRYSTAL TRIANGLES
THIS YEAR S THEME A HOPE FOR FELLOWSHIP
SLIDING DOWN 100 FEET (Must confirm)

(More facts to come Carson choose bullet points can be placed on blue cards.)

#16a (BALL DROPS)

[Owner Susie] Lockheed said she initially was terrified of Sam when she agreed to take him in as a rescue dog six years ago on a 48-hour trial basis. Although she fell in love with him, his appearance repulsed her then-boyfriend and prompted the man to break up with her.

Sam would of course go on to become three time undefeated World's Ugliest Dog champion, and was soon claiming America's most beloved personalities and captains of industry as personal friends. We have no doubt he is looking down on us now with his cataract-whitened eyes, smiling his crooked smile, thinking, "Couldn't they at least have found a shot of me with Leno? I killed on Regis! 15 years dragging this ugly mug around and all I got to show for it is a frickin' picture with Carson Daly and my face blurred out. Good riddance, putzes."

• 'World's ugliest' dog dies at 14 [MSNBC/AP]
• [Samugliestdog.com]