Nominations fuel funny family feud

Variety, Music or Comedy

By DANIEL FRANKEL

'Late Show With David Letterman'

While it's big in stature, the New York TV comedy world is certainly geographically small enough so that the writing staffs of the five shows tapped in Emmy's variety, music or comedy scribe category this year know each other pretty well.

In fact, many of the nominated writers toiling in these close Manhattan-based quarters have worked for the competition at one time or another.

"The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" head writer Steve Bodow, for example, used to be on the "Late Show With David Letterman" staff. Daniel J. Goor, who shared the variety, music or comedy writing trophy with the "Daily Show" staff in 2001, is up for the award this year with the "Conan" crew.

And the connections go even further back. Nominated "SNL" head writer Andrew Steele, who recently left for the online site Funny or Die, hasn't written for any of the skeins competing for this year's scribe trophy, but he did toil for MTV's "The Jon Stewart Show" back in the early 1990s.

The community is so tight that O'Brien, Stewart and "Colbert Report" maven Stephen Colbert ran back and forth between each other's sets earlier this year while staging a mock three-way feud to keep viewers -- and perhaps, themselves -- entertained while the writers rooms were emptied out during the strike.

The close proximity and intermingling within the TV Academy's favorite comedy-variety skeins, not to mention the infrequent turnover of the nominees -- "Letterman," for example, has been tapped 11 years running -- make it difficult to discern trend lines in terms of Academy voting.

"The Daily Show" owned the category 2003-07 before ceding the honor last year to "Conan." Before that, in 2002, a Tina Fey-led "SNL" won a category that looked much like this year's, with "Letterman," "The Daily Show" and "Conan" also competing.

NOMINEES

"The Colbert Report" (Comedy Central)

"The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" (Comedy Central)

"Late Night With Conan O'Brien" (NBC)

"Late Show With David Letterman" (CBS)

"Saturday Night Live" (NBC)