One enterprising newspaper writer looked up what television programmers ultimately had to air during previous writers strikes. During the 153-day long 1960 strike the networks resorted to the following:

L.A.’s seven broadcast channels were loaded up with old movies. About a month before the strike ended, KTLA was reduced to prime-time “Wrecks Galore on Destruction Derby,” and on one desperate evening, two channels ran simultaneous previews of the Ice Capades.

Sounds bad? It gets worse:

And yet strike-time prime time was also chockablock with travelogues, like a journey to Shakespeare’s London, and an adventure documentary by Charles Darwin’s great-grandson. Channel 4 aired “Startime,” a remarkable hourlong “anthology” series that mixed documentaries, dramas and comedy. It aired an episode during the strike with Richard Nixon, John F. Kennedy and Adlai Stevenson telling Americans why they should vote.

I want to see the Nixon, Kennedy, Stevenson thing! My favorite threat, which didn’t come to reality, was from Saved by the Bell favorite Brandon Tartikoff:

During the 1988 strike, NBC’s Brandon Tartikoff threatened to bring out scripts for old short-lived or never-seen shows and just recast them and reshoot them.

While I’m not a big fan of strikebreaking in this instance, this could actually be a really fun idea. Remember all those critically acclaimed shows that just didn’t quite get off the ground?  We can give them another chance with a new cast! Freaks and Geeks mark 2, MTV’s Downtown version B, Wonderfalls: the Next Generation… I can’t wait to see who they cast as Daria. Let’s just hope the casting directors don’t go out on strike before this all comes together. (PS. are the casting directors in a union?)