Is your personal strike fund dipping to dangerously low levels as the already weeks-old work stoppage drags into the New Year with no end in sight? Those who can still afford their copies of Variety today learned that there's help available to those approaching dire financial straits, as the compassionate proprietors of high-end Beverly Hills pawnshop The Dita Collection have taken out a half-page ad (click image for a larger version) offering reduced loan rates for all "verifiable WGA, SAG, DGA, IA, and Teamster Brothers" who might need to hock their fine art and jewelry to make their mortgage payment. It's profoundly touching how every sector of our city seems to be joining together to help those affected by the strike survive these difficult times, even if they're an engagement ring or gold watch lighter by the time a deal is reached.

It seems the WGA strike has claimed its first awards season victim: according to a press release from Extra, the ceremony for The People's Choice Awards has been canceled; confusingly, "some form" of the event involving no red carpet and no media is still scheduled to air on January 8th, as CBS is apparently determined to fulfill its sacred duty as custodians of the public's statuette-granting will whether or not there's an actual "show" to broadcast. (Or picket.) We're told to stay tuned for more updates on what this all means, but our attention span on this matter has already been taxed to the limit by wondering how host Queen Latifah might be integrated into the modified proceedings in a way that doesn't tragically squander her talents. [ExtraTV.com]

Say what you will about the AMPTP, an organization much-derided for its clumsy attempts to utilize the hated internets as a means for spreading the word about its burning desires to lavish Radio Contest Winner Money upon greedy, unreasonable writers, but it's now deploying its online resources much more effectively.

· Following NBC's Monday announcement that it's sending Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien back to work without writers, ABC's Jimmy Kimmel is the next late-night domino to fall, as he'll join his competitors in producing scribe-free shows on January 2nd. The now-obligatory "I support the cause but I don't want the rest of the staff losing their jobs" back-to-work statement: "Though it makes me sick to do so without my writers, there are more than 100 people whose financial well-being depends on our show. It is time to go back to work. I support my colleagues and friends in the WGA completely and hope this ends both fairly and soon." [THR]
· Universal's State of Play, which recently weathered an acting upgrade/heartthrob downgrade when Russell Crowe replaced a fleeing Brad Pitt, is now officially troubled™: Ed Norton has also left the project, and up-and-coming director Ben Affleck is now "in talks" to resume his acting career by taking Norton's place. [Variety]

Somewhat disappointingly, there's no footage of cast members like Tom Berenger or Laura Prepon making sympathetic pizza deliveries to the protesting writers, perhaps indicating that the strike has dragged on so long no one can be bothered to take an easy, solidarity-promoting photo-op anymore.

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.)

Following this morning's announcement that both The Tonight Show and Late Night are returning to the air without their scribes, expect taser-wielding NBC pages to be put on high-alert and given instructions to fire at will the moment an audience member begins to heckle Jay Leno for not being funny enough, a tragically indiscriminate policy that likely will claim as many bored tourists as Guild vigilantes.

It's looking like our long national nightmare of a rerun-plagued late-night network schedule is finally coming to an end, even as the WGA strike stretches on into the new year; over the weekend, the NY Times reported that David Letterman's Worldwide Pants, the independent producer of The Late Show and The Late Late Show, was trying to reach its own CBS-circumventing deal with the Guild to get back on the air with its writing staff; this morning, NBC has announced that both Conan O'Brien and Jay Leno are headed back to work on January 2nd without writers, a move that O'Brien explains was necessary to keep his bosses from pulling the trigger on the gun pointed at his staff's collective temple. Reports Variety:

While their toe-tapping take on "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" was an indisputable hit with onlookers, nothing compared to the moment a solemn Kevin Arnold donned a white robe and angel wings, mounted a barricade made of discarded picket-signs, and belted to the tune of "O Holy Night," "No more we write/Nick Counter is a Wiener!" in his stirring, pitch-perfect mezzo-soprano.

· They aren't done administering the defibrillator to the dead-eyed corpse of late-night TV just yet: Some are buzzing that "several hosts" plan on returning to the air by January 7, making life a little less egg-pelty for Ellen DeGeneres and Carson Daly. [Variety]
· After next week, however, every scripted TV series shooting in LA will have officially gone dark, explaining the eerie, silent calm throughout the city, and the longer, sadder lines at the Coffee Bean. [Variety]
· A new ceremony from The Academy of TV Arts & Sciences "will highlight and demonstrate the good things that TV does." The first lifetime achievement award goes to Fox Alternative Programming guru Mike Darnell, for his "tireless efforts in furthering the cause of people being hooked up to a lie detector and forced to answer whether or not they are still attracted to their spouse on national TV." [Variety]

With not even the prospect of some rousing Christmas-themed pickets (we think that the briefly spitballed "March of 1,000 Angry Santas" in front of the Warner Bros. lot would've been a winner) to look forward to during a planned holiday protesting hiatus, a frustrated WGA has decided to take action to compel the studios to return to the bargaining table they walked away from last Friday. In a just-issued press release, the Guild indicates that it's filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board decrying the "illegal demands" the AMPTP has set as a precondition for resuming talks, and also reveals that it's petitioned the agency for an immediate injunction against studio bogeyman Nick Counter, whom they have good reason to believe has plans to "quietly lower himself down the chimneys of slumbering Guild families, set fire to the lovingly wrapped presents beneath their Christmas trees, and then steal away into the night, greedily gobbling the delicious snacks their children had left for St. Nicholas." The press release follows after the jump:

· On Monday, the studios will start unwrapping the Yuletide gift they've given themselves by halting negotiations until an indeterminate point in the new year and removing the possibility of holiday-saving miracle deal: the activation of the force majeure clauses that will allow them to cancel pricey, unwanted talent contracts. We'll say it again: Merry Strike Christmas! [Variety]
· The always-daring Jackass gang will release the next installment of their incredibly popular adventures in genital mutilation and flatulence inhalation, Jackass 2.5, online. [THR]

Yesterday's "Diversity Day" theme-picket event at Paramount was, by nearly any measure, a huge success. Not only did hundreds of protesters of all colors and creeds turn out in stirring show of solidarity for the white guys who eventually will go back to getting all the writing jobs once the strike is settled, but the undeniable feelings of togetherness that suffused the march may have helped heal some old wounds inflicted by intolerance.

Once again turning to the revenue-deficient wasteland of the internet to get its message out to the public, the negotiation-averse AMPTP posts a reminder about how much money the Guild is costing everybody while its members mock up hurtful websites and grab-ass with Mr. Sulu on the picket line. That Doomsday Ticker never stops spinning! "Then, someone from the WGA offices happily distributed the link to a hijacked parody website that even many rank-and-file WGA members felt was over-the-top. All of this is happening right along with the WGA's continuing series of concerts, rallies, mock exorcisms, pencil-drops and Star Trek-themed gatherings. Amidst this alternating mix of personal attacks and picket line frivolity, we must not forget that this WGA strike is beginning to cause serious economic damage to many people in the entertainment business." [AMPTP.org]

Though there's still plenty of time for the WGA and studios to hammer out an agreement before the entertainment industry has to seriously consider the strike's potential impact on the Academy Awards, it's not too early to start fretting about a highly theoretical doomsday scenario in which the whole ceremony is canceled, a situation that could plunge the entire celebrity-service industry into ruin. How will the people who make a living catering to those too busy to attend to their own needs fare in an Oscarless world? ABC News investigates:

Having survived a public buggering following the announcement that he'd be the first late-night talkshow host to cross the WGA picket line and the subsequent publication of his hilariously misguided e-mail plea for gag-writing help from non-union friends and family, an embattled™ Carson Daly had to know that more sanity-fraying good times were in store for him once he returned to produce new episodes of Last Call without his writing staff. On Tuesday night, a team of striking writers infiltrated Daly's studio audience (an action not sanctioned by the Guild, we're told), briefly ruining his penetrating interrogation of Dancing with Stars also-ran Jerry Rice before security restored order to the Last Call world. A tipster forwarded this firsthand account of last night's shenanigans (there's also an amusing, if headache-inducing, cell-phone recording of the disruption, which we hope to share shortly):

· Sean Penn's Into the Wild leads the Broadcast Critics Association awards nominations with seven nods, including best picture, director, actor, and writer. Meanwhile, the contrarian critics of San Francisco name Brad Pitt's little-seen outlaw-tone-poem The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford their best of the year. [Variety, Variety · ABC pulls last three episodes of Big Shots from the air despite its rapidly expiring supply of fresh scripted programming, handing its cushy, post-Grey's Anatomy timeslot to repeats of Private Practice. [THR]

The Incredible Picketing Baby returns! A tipster spotted the WGA's brightest beacon of hope, one that can't be dimmed even by Friday evening's discouraging turn of events, spreading her latest pro-Guild messages at the Sony lot earlier today. Click the image for a larger version and further lose yourself in her feel-good cult of personality.

In a morning that's been filled with disappointment, incredible tragedy, and the setting of a citywide gloom unlikely to lift before the new year, we've barely resisting the urge to turn off the internets and crawl back into bed, waiting for someone to wake us around Groundhog Day. (Don't worry—an intern is on the way over to Defamer HQ with a Paxil-and-Grey Goose cocktail that should brighten up our moods considerably.)