New SNL shows may be gone from your Saturday night TV line-up, but if you are a lucky resident of New York City you can see the crew perform live at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater this Saturday with Superbad star Michael Cera hosting. Seems that the SNL cast has decided to not let the writers’ strike dull their comic abilities and will improv different skits live. Cera, who is currently in New York filming Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist for Sony Pictures, was contacted directly by SNL and UCB member Amy Poehler to see if he was interested in joining in. He won’t be meeting with the cast until a few hours before the show, so his previous improv skills will definitely be tested.

Add 30 Rock to the list of casualties of the writers strike. Tina Fey’s show, which films at Silvercup Studios in New York, shut down production yesterday. The NBC comedy shot a total of 10 episodes this season, five of which have yet to air.

Close to 4,000 people — the largest crowd since the strike began — gathered outside the Fox lot today as the writers’ strike entered its fifth day. The mood among striking writers was, um, upbeat. “Yippee kai pay motherf*****,” cheered Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane, to rousing applause. “We are going to win this thing. They know they are in the wrong here. The logic would be
obvious to a child. A novelist receives royalties for his books. A
musician receives royalties for their songs. Screenwriters deserve fair
royalties for their work.”

Not only were some of television’s top showrunners on hand — Lost‘s Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse and Desperate Housewives‘ Marc Cherry — but a bunch of actors showed up as well, including Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Larry David, Tom Arnold, and Dennis Haysbert. Strikers carried picket signs, shouted
chants, shut down two major streets, and enjoyed refreshments provided by the
agencies. William Morris brought coffee and bagels, UTA handed out energy bars, and those show-offs at CAA provided agency-baked churros.

While rally entertainment was provided by Rage Against the
Machine’s Tom Morello, WGA
West President Patric Verrone was all business, introducing a series of speakers, including
Reverend Jesse Jackson, WGA negotiating
committee chair John Bowman, and
SAG president Alan Rosenberg. Meanwhile, one writer-director-producer summed up the strikers’ position well: “I don’t think
people really understand that the studios are asking the writers to
take a gigantic step backwards,” said Judd Apatow. “If you are going to watch your shows on
the Internet and it’s going to be hooked up to your TV, then writers
should get paid an amount equivalent to what they normally get.
Anything other than that is just a money grab.”