Entertainment

COLBERT, STEWART BACK JAN. 7

COMEDY Central cutups Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert will return to the air on Jan. 7, even if their writing staffs remain on strike.

They will join the rest of the late-night talk show hosts – with the exception of David Letterman – who have agreed to resume production on their shows after New Years, despite the ongoing Writers Guild strike.

“We would like to return to work with our writers,” Stewart and Colbert said yesterday in a statement released by Comedy Central. “If we cannot, we would like to express our ambivalence, but without our writers we are unable to express something as nuanced as ambivalence.”

It is understood that the shows may add additional celebrity interviews and ad-lib to fill their 22-minute programs.

“We continue to hold out hope for a swift resolution to the current stalemate that will enable the shows to be complete again,” Comedy Central officials said in a statement.

Comedy industry sources note that Stewart is an accomplished stand-up comic and his show’s executive producer and head writer, while Colbert is a successful improvisational actor who spent years working for the famed Chicago improv group Second City.

All the late-night talk shows have been dark since the Writers Guild strike began on Nov. 5.