About a week after the controversial announcement was made that Carson Daly would cross his writers on the picket line and return to Last Call, the highest-rated late-late night talk show among graveyard-shift convenience store clerks looking for a break from watching closed circuit video feeds of their empty parking lots, the embattled host finally returned to the airwaves Monday.

In the broadcast's early moments, Daly somberly explained why he was he was the first of the nighttime talk-show fraternity to break ranks and go back to his job: an ultimatum from NBC that they'd lay off his staff and replace the show with an infomercial for an amazing rotisserie oven that produces perfectly juicy chickens—each and every time!—if he refused to produce new episodes. (A threat we suspect the network was at least half-hoping he would refuse, lusting after some easy Popeil money.) Above is a clip of Last Call's intital writerless effort, featuring what we assume was the best of the gags suggested on Daly's scab joke hotline.