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Did upward-failing NBC Universal Chief Executive Golden Boy Jeff Zucker, enraged at the galling disloyalty of striking SNL writers who planned to participate in the delivery of a Top Ten list on hated CBS talk-show rival David Letterman's WGA-sanctioned return to the airwaves last Wednesday night, threaten to dispatch a flock of ravenous, flesh-craving demon-peacocks to eat the defenseless babies of anyone who dared betray their corporate family by appearing on a competing network's late-night telecast? Sources tell Slate's Kim Masters that once Zucker got word of the impending treachery, Warnings Were Issued, and a hasty retreat beaten by some of those reminded where their bread was buttered:

The writers were in the Letterman's lair, waiting to record the list, when someone at NBC got hold of them, our sources say. Zucker's displeasure was threatened and they were convinced to book out of there just before the cameras rolled. (Conan O'Brien writer Chris Albers stood his ground and did the list.)

An NBC spokesperson denies that Zucker made that call or caused that call to be made. "We would not want our people on Letterman but Jeff Zucker is not meddling," this executive says. "This is happening on a lower level." Someone at NBC simply invoked Zucker's name in trying to stampede the writers off the show, the spokesman contends, adding, "I do it all the time when I need clout."

The flack additionally denied a report that Zucker, in an attempt to dissuade 30 Rock's Tracy Morgan from jilting NBC's Jay Leno by appearing on The Late Show to promote upcoming film First Sunday, quietly had one of those "lower-level" functionaries suggest to Morgan that it would take "no more than one phonecall" from the network boss to have a SCRAM-style cuff similar to the one he recently had removed from his ankle attached to Morgan's genitals, a device that could "accidentally" explode if Morgan had so much of a sip of Letterman's green room booze.