[Note: an update follows after the jump.] As it turns out, those call-rollers who were told that they'd be sacrificing their overtime pay to help their companies weather the writers strike were the lucky ones, as THR confirms that Innovative Artists has laid off about 10 of its assistants, a move the agency's head says is necessary for the firm's survival while the flow of executive-nourishing commission checks slows to a trickle:

On this ninth day of the strike that has reduced Hollywood to a one-story town, take a bite of that days-old, CAA-supplied churro and scroll through this morning's round-up:

Strikers, beware! A tipster reports that Universal has a secret weapon for dealing with picketers who become too consumed with their disruptive activities to pay attention to flashing crosswalk signs: the long, in-house arm of the ticket-writing law: "I was on the picket line at Gate 1 at Universal this morning. At one point a sheriff emerged from WITHIN Universal to sit and watch the picket line. As soon as he saw two picketers enter the crosswalk when the red hand was flashing, he called them over and ticketed them for jaywalking. Now, granted, he was within his rights to do so, but he then failed to ticket any drivers taking unprotected lefts into the crosswalk while there were pedestrians occupying it. According to traffic laws, the drivers were in violation as they have to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks (violation 21950 a. Zing!). We helpfully pointed out at least six vehicles that didn't yield, but no drivers were tickidation, and the unequal application of the laws just seemed, well, illegal." As a bonus, click the photo to reveal the identity of a picketing actor falling prey to this seemingly selective enforcement of traffic laws!

· Even though the WGA strike might wipe out a significant portion of this so-far underwhelming Fall season, there's still some good news for TV: most shows have produced enough episodes that the Academy may not have to cancel the Emmys, an awards show that rivals the average picket line in thrills-per-minute even in years when it's not hampered by labor strife. [Variety]
· E! further fortifies its lineup of strike-proof programming by picking up a second season of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, a show they can easily spin off into separate series following each member of the Hollywood's bustiest, semifamous family should the need for even more mindless schedule-filler arise. [THR]

Thanks to comedian/longtime Oscar gag-writer Bruce Vilanch's new online effort* in support of the WGA, we now know exactly what we stand to lose if the strike drags on long enough to disrupt the Academy Awards: the kind of timelessly uproarious Monica Lewinsky jokes that have tens of millions of movie-loving TV viewers falling off their couches decade after decade. *UPDATE/CLARIFICATION: Vilanch's publicist informs us that the comic has nothing to do with the brucestrikes site, which has apparently been set up by a cruel "punker." We imagine that the hunt for the culprit will begin with AMPTP president Nick Counter, who might be masterminding a wave of prank sites to undermine the resolve of his WGA enemies by attacking their slogan-writing abilities. [brucestrikes.com]

Though the WGA's weekend hiatus from picketing inevitably slowed the Guild's impressive rate of generating photo-ops with sympathetic celebrities willing to march, chant, and consume agency-provided, high-calorie snacks with their writing brethren, there's still plenty of strike-related news to round up on this surprisingly warm and sunny Day 8:

Exactly what had been missing from the picket lines had been eating at us all week, but now we know what that elusive element was: "ring girls" counting off the days of the strike! Sure, she looks perky now and probably provided a nice morale boost at today's Fox rally, but once those numbers creep higher and higher as the walkout drags on, her appearance in front of a studio gate toting a DAY 163 sign might make her more of a harbinger of doom and futility than a symbol of resolve and hope. (Unless, of course, she brings along delicious churros, which never fail to raise flagging spirits.)

As some readers seem weirdly obsessed with the specifics of CAA's pastry-dispensing activities at Fox earlier today, we're happy to keep the ball rolling with this reader-supplied anecdote: "It wasn't just pastries, it was Churros. Piles and piles of hot churros. The lady standing next to me took one from the besuited and $400 sunglass bespectacled agent offering them on a silver tray:
Lady: Ooooh, churros. Where are you guys from? What restaurant?
Agent: Creative Artists Agency
Lady: I'm sorry, where?
Second Agent in charge of carrying napkins two steps behind the main Churros-bearing agent: Uh, CAA?!?!?!
Lady: Oh."

For the next leg of her continuing tour of the hottest WGA picket lines in Hollywood, a journey that recently brought her to Paramount to witness the birth of the strike's first sidewalk-theater group, we dispatched Defamer videographer Molly McAleer to today's massive rally at Fox Plaza, as the gates of other studio headquarters were being patrolled only by the usual, non-Guild teams of tourists, vagrants, and sex workers.

From an attendee of today's Guild siege of Fox Plaza: "I was at the WGA rally. Assistants from CAA were out in full force with trays offering the writers pastries." While it's certainly generous of CAA to taks some time away from its regularly scheduled evildoing plans to service its striking clients, it's not like the agency might not benefit from the short trip across Century City. For example, if in the course of distributing those delicious pastries, some of the writers became distracted long enough for their infants to escape their momentarily unattended strollers or wriggle free of their baby-bjorns, somehow finding their way into the burlap sacks and butterlfy nets carried by other Creative Artists assistants, well, that's just a happy little side effect of supporting the cause. UPDATE: We're now told that William Morris was on the scene with coffee and bagels and UTA with Power Bars; with such a high concentration of agents bearing gifts for hungry strikers in that crowd, it's a miracle that any parents whatsoever left the rally with their young families intact.

Because we know that it's probably been at least ten minutes since you've tried to kill some time at your strike-stalled place of business by looking at images of thousands of picket-sign toting, red-shirt-clad writers chatting up their new celebrity best friends, we're happy to pass along these photos generously sent in by some readers who were part of today's WGA-sponsored Striking Man event at Fox Plaza. Among the famous faces awaiting you after the jump: Tom Arnold! The Reno 911 guys! A fictional president and a onetime presidential candidate! (Make sure you scroll all the way to the bottom to see some bonus pictures sent in by shadowy strike correspondent "Nick Counter," who was reminded of another historic day by the sight of some Fox employees taking refuge on a rooftop high above the throng.)

The nonwriting staff of The Tonight Show has been told that they will be laid off at the end of next week, an announcement sure to send host Jay Leno's compassionate Krispy Kreme expenditures soaring. But hope remains that they could be back on the job shortly: If they can find guests hosts (Andy Dick? NBCU boss Jeff Zucker? The ghost of Jack Paar?) willing to cross the picket line—Leno has so far refused to do so, having previously acknowledged he'd be like a crippled, unfunny lamb led to the talk-show slaughter without his writers—people could be back on the job November 19th. [B&C/Photo:Franklin Ave]

Ellen DeGeneres has begun to soften on the admirably hard-line stance she took on behalf of Hollywood's striking writers: On today's show (taped earlier in the week) she still refused to do a monologue, but has migrated back to the mark where she typically begins each broadcast. Still, she continues to cross the line, raising the question of whether or not she'll do the same when the Talk Show DJ's Guild talks come up later this year, and she's forced to weather the spittle-flecked invective of its single member, Stryker, fighting for his fair percentage of audience-boogying residuals.

What better way to celebrate Day 5 of the writers strike than by trawling Craigslist—the one place you can find a couch, a job, and a lunchtime quickie within minutes—to see what kinds of opportunities might have arisen from the wreckage:
· Studio executives who failed to get the stockpiling memo: It's not too late. Listing "We Are Saling Our Scripts!" informs deep-pocketed buyers that, "We are saling our scripts to anyone who's willing to purchase at a reasonable price." Bai now before they're all snapped up! [CL]
· The only place you're likely to find more scabs is on Steve O's body. [CL, CL, CL, CL]
· Attempts at humor can be lost entirely on Craigslist's sometimes gullible user base: "RE: SUPPORT THE WRITTERS GIULD...This person states that they are a 'writter', cant even spell his chosen profession! maybe this person is rushing out to get into the strike lines that they just cant be bothered with clicking the spell check button. here are some of the other misspelled words, 'giuld' 'toleraded'" [CL]

As this exciting and eventful first week of striking draws to a close (enjoy it while it lasts, for the picket lines probably won't stay so well-stocked with your favorite out-of-work TV stars a few weeks hence), we offer this Friday morning round-up:

Breaking! Could bite-sized—but volatile—DreamWorks Animation head Jeffrey Katzenberg be a secret WGA sympathizer? An operative reports from the Warner Bros. picket line: "Funny story today from the WB Gate 2 strike lines. Jeffery Katzenberg was pulling into the lot in his black Prius right in front of a bunch of us. Someone recognized him right away and in an act of God, he hit the red light. A lot of us starting shouting at him (not hostilely, in good humor) asking for just a leeettle bit of internet money. Trapped at the light, he gave us a few "whaddya gonna do?" shrugs, then right before the light changed we got a thumbs up from him! (at least I thought they were his thumbs) A good omen, right?" While the thumbs-up could be a sign that he's not totally unnmoved by the WGA members' plight, we don't know what business brought him to the WB lot; perhaps he was there to join his fellow moguls in a dark ritual in which the evil cabal sips from chalices brimming with the blood of previously defeated writers that's been aging in the Warner Bros. water tower since the 1988 strike, renewing their oath to win this latest war at all costs. Under those circumstances, the seemingly friendly gesture could be interpreted as somewhat less encouraging.

Hollywood ChantWatch, When There's No One Left To Kick Around Edition: According to a tipster, "I just rolled into NBC Burbank and the picketers are chanting 'Ellen ain't no friend o' mine/ She danced across our picket line!' as her PA's are ferrying audience members through the line. Pretty catchy, especially considering they're largely her writers out there." That chant is definitely cute enough, but given the accusations about DeGeneres's relationship with a previous writing staff that surfaced earlier today, we'd hoped that there would be at least one member of her current team disgruntled enough to really stir things up by taunting, "Ellen ain't no friend o' mine/We rewrote the fucking dog speech nineteen times!"

A tipster informs us that the Guild's roaming, set-disrupting WGA Strike Force, armed with whistles, bullhorns, and—always a a classy touch—a saxophone, just successfully shut down a Mad TV location shoot in Hollywood's DeLongpre Park, where the show was trying to get footage for a sketch called "The Worst Magician in the World." With the unkillable series featuring no recognizable stars to take hostage for the cause, however, the marauding writers will have to settle for the satisfaction of having temporarily hobbled Fox's ability to profit from the exploitation of David Copperfield's misery.

Early strike hero Steve Carell, whose refusal to cross his writers on the picket line helped to shut down production of the show, may also find himself the victim of those who refuse to pay for valuable promotional work. In a timely, if unsolicited, e-mail promotion that found its way to our inbox this morning (excerpt pictured), Carell's cartoon likeness is being used by a Brazilian company hawking some kind of office-related product.