One of the funniest parts of the Emmy Awards in the past has been the announcement of the writing nominees for the late night comedy shows. Each year, the shows come up with some amusing way of listing their writing staffs. One year recently, for example, the writers for “The Colbert Report” were introduced, standing side by side on a New York City sidewalk. At the end, an angry Stephen Colbert walked in and gestured at the writers, and the camera widened out to show that they were lined up in front of the Ed Sullivan Theater, home of a different New York-based talk show.
Unfortunately, those writing awards were moved from the main Emmy telecast to the untelevised Creative Arts Emmy awards held last weekend. But the staff of the former “Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien” brought the funny anyway, with a nod to the fact that soon after their Emmy-nominated episodes were broadcast, they were, um, unemployed: