If I were Viacom, it would be worth a lot of money to me to get them to stop making fun of me this effectively:

…and not to get all political on you, but there’s a sense in which “paying them a lot of money to stop making fun of Viacom” is exactly what the Daily Show is. It brings a ton of very talented people together, and pays them to produce something which—while extremely insightful about the media—really can’t deal with something even deeper and more important: corporate power and commercial culture. Once the show’s back on the air, it won’t be featuring anything like this.

MORE: Steve Bodow, the Daily Show’s head writer, on the strike. And since he mentions Clifford Odets, here’s S.J. Perelman’s parody of Odets’ play “Waiting for Lefty,” “Waiting for Santy.”