Kevin Bleyer

Please do.

Yes, please don't.

And so, certainly I was exhausted, but I was also unemployed.

I had nothing else to do today but sit in a coffee shop and write a bunch of jokes.

Well, you're not sorted because you don't know if you're going to be employed for two weeks or eight years.

Some can.

If you're a long journeyman on any of these shows, sure, that's a good chunk of change.

I'm happy to tell you details.

But it is the case that most of these contracts begin, at least they did 20 years ago, I think they still do essentially, on 13-week contracts.

So while you're making a good weekly salary, you only have a guarantee of three months.

And it is the case on many of these shows.

that some people only last 13 weeks.

Some others last 13 years.

And I also, I mean, after I got the job, I was somewhat reassured in that as soon as I arrived, most of the people had stayed around on The Daily Show for a long time because it was, when I arrived, a very well-oiled machine.

And they took great pains to hire and did not hire, you know,

you know just they didn't they they like i said they put me through the bases i imagine they put a lot of people through the paces um to make sure that they were hiring somebody that they could rely on yeah not a lot of people came and went on the daily show in the on the writing staff um during my era now that was 10 years ago so i don't know how things are are now

Generally, it works that way, but it's kind of vague how people account for that.

remember that we kind of were they they did track how many jokes you got on there was a secret spreadsheet somewhere that no one ever saw yeah yeah yeah on the air do we have verifiable proof that that existed no but we had heard that it does and there was some talk of it yes

golden time when people didn't feel so competitive with each other for most of the time i was there um um but i say this all to ask you guys i mean you seem to be so surprised by this but you you know there are late night shows in in the uk that have writing staffs why is it not i mean you guys invented some parts of these forms so why why is it so i'm surprised i guess i'm surprised of course you've done a show you've done like yeah i've seen you on many things

I actually enjoyed that pressure.