As the entertainment industry grapples with how to move forward in the face of a strike by the Writers Guild of America (WGA), most late-night talk shows have turned to airing reruns because writers are critical to supplying jokes and other content for the nightly chat fests. Ben Alba is a DePaul College of Law professor who has studied the history of late-night talk shows as well as the format’s creator, Steve Allen. He is available to discuss how Allen’s spontaneous sense of humor enabled him to thrive during his tenure as the first “Tonight” show host (1954-1957)— without the army of writers typically employed by late-night shows today.

“Had there been a WGA strike in his day, Allen may well have sympathized with his working writers because he was a champion of social causes,” said Alba, the author of “Inventing Late Night: Steve Allen and the Original Tonight Show” (2005, Prometheus Books). “But for him, letting the ‘Tonight’ show go into reruns was not an option. Back then, it was all live, and there was no tape to rerun.”

Alba can discuss the format of earlier late-night talk shows and how they compare with today’s late-night talk programming. He also can vividly recount how many of the comedic vehicles employed by Allen back in 1954 survive today in the many incarnations of the late-night talk genre and have been used by everyone from Johnny Carson to Jay Leno to David Letterman.

Alba can be reached at 312/362-8483 or by e-mail at: balba@depaul.edu.