Faced with many challenges for finding a free weekend night next winter, the Writers Guild has settled on a date for their awards show. Why, it’s Saturday February 1st, which is also the night before the Super Bowl in New York City. Maybe the WGA needs a marketing consultant. But really, even some of the nominees may choose to be in New York at Super Bowl parties, and not at the Edison Ballroom (yikes).
Super Bowl in New York is like Mardi Gras, New Year’s Eve and the end of the world all rolled into one. There will so much hype and wildness I doubt very much anyone except the mothers of the nominees will be invested in the Writers Guild East ceremony–especially since the Guild doesn’t even have a closed circuit camera set up so the two coasts can participate simultaneously. (I do think that’s been possible since the late 1950s.)
Anyway, what can they do? Saturdays January 18th and 25th are taken up with the SAGs and the DGA, respectively. I would have gone with Sunday January 26th, the night of the Grammy Awards. But no one asked me.