ABSTRACT
In the past decade, two of the funniest and most-watched humor shows on television have been The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report with Stephen Colbert on the Comedy Central cable network. Both fictitious news parody programs are successful because of the team of creative people behind the programs, including on-camera talents Stewart and Colbert, but primarily because of the programs’ sharp-witted writers. Without these writers absorbing news coverage of current events of the world each day, these programs would quickly end. This was evident, of course, with the 2007-08 Writers Guild of America strike when the two programs temporarily ceased production and went into re-runs. When the strike ended, the writers were back at work, making us laugh at the presidential campaign, the world’s economic problems, and so much more.
