The NY Times is reporting that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert will return to the airwaves on January 7th, the same week their late-night buddies at the major networks are also planning to return. None of the shows will have their writing staffs, since the strike that took the shows off the air is still ongoing, and one wonders how that will affect the content. Without my writers, for instance, I can’t even answer the phone. Helloooo? Whaaaat? Darrrrr? Thank you very much. Anyway, the Times says both the hosts will have to improvise basically everything they say, which seems like it might be easier for Stewart, but again, who knows. The hosts said in a statement that they would, of course, prefer to bring their writers with them, and “if we cannot, we would like to express our ambivalence, but without our writers we are unable to express something as nuanced as ambivalence.” Cute. Since both hosts are members of the Writers Guild, will we see any protests, officially-sanctioned or otherwise (like what happened to the hapless Carson Daly) against the shows? Tune in in two weeks…