If there's one potentially happy side-effect of the strike-hobbled, reality-TV-riddled primetime schedules that will soon be necessitated by the writers strike's shutdown of the script pipeline, it's that Richard Simmons will probably enjoy a much-deserved career resurgence as his personal services become coveted by producers desperate for a hit from the stunt-cameo crackpipe.

After dropping by Dancing with the Stars to serve as Jennie Garth's pom-pom-wielding, short-shorted life coach and leading the show to yet another Nielsen victory, even established hits like Deal or No Deal will soon be clamoring to line up Simmons appearances, knowing that viewers won't be able to resist tuning in to see if the exertion of prying open one of those briefcases might shake loose a painstakingly depilated testicle from its vertically striped, minimum security prison, instantly creating the kind of spontaneous watercooler moment that overworked alternative programming executives crave.