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Already plagued by questions about which honorees might be willing to cross the WGA picket line to collect their gilded tokens of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association's inscrutable esteem, the producers of the Golden Globes learned late yesterday that the Guild had turned down a waiver request to allow WGA writers to toil on their show, a move that will force their telecast to rely on the booze-fueled improvisations of its presenters to an even greater degree than usual. (This year, on-air talent will be compelled to drain half a bottle of cheap tequila—purely a voluntary option at past ceremonies—before they're allowed to exit the green room and take their wobbly place behind the podium. A vomit receptacle will be made available for those whose dangerously low body weights hamper their ability to hold down quickly imbibed quantities of alcohol.)

And for those who've held out hope that the Guild might be more amenable to helping out the Academy by allowing scribes to supply their banter-fabricating services to Hollywood's Biggest Night, further disappointment awaits: a rejection for a similar writing waiver is expected, and the WGA has already turned down a clearance request for clips from films and past Oscar shows, a decision that potentially cripples producer Gil Cates' unparalleled ability to bore hundreds of millions of worldwide TV viewers with seemingly endless montages of Golden Moments from show business's less strike-plagued past.