On January 2 history will repeat itself when NBC’s “The Tonight Show” will return without the writers.

The first time this happened was in May 11, 1988 when the show returned without the writers after two months of the first strike of the writers. “The Tonight Show” was then hosted by Johnny Carson.

Jeff Sotzing, president of Carson Entertainment and Carson’s nephew, said: “The public was glad he was back, the staff was glad, everybody was happy to get paychecks again. Nobody wanted to cross the picket line, but when they finally did, it was a huge relief.”

Carson was paying the staff from his pocket as he was the owner the "The Tonight Show.” David Letterman is doing the same thing during this strike.

Letterman, who is the owner of the CBS’s "Late Show" and "Late Late Show,” is trying to get an interim deal with the Writers Guild of America in order to return on January 2 with the two shows along with the scribes, Reuters reports.

On the first night that Carson’s show returned he had two guests: William Toone, curator of birds at San Diego Wild Animal Park and actor Joe Piscopo, who promoted his movie “Dead Heat.”

Regarding the talent booking for the late shows many believe that actors won’t respond to the invitations as they won’t cross the picket line.

Until now no special guest was announced for any of the NBC's "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" and "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" and ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live” which will run from January 2.

CBS' "Late Show With David Letterman" will have Donald Trump as a guest on January 2 but there is nothing certain about the returning of the show as its depending on the interim deal.

Veteran publicist and former Hollywood Reporter writer Charlie Barrett, who was a spokesman for the "Tonight Show" in the 1980s, said that the strike didn’t get all this attention is getting now in 1988.

“We never saw this kind of attention given to a writer’s strike that we see today,” he said.

On May 11 Carson opened the show with a monologue written by himself. Today almost all hosts are member of the WGA so technically they are not allowed to even write their own stuff, but back then he was not a member of the guild.

In the monologue he made jokes about the strike and the length of it.

After the monologue he had a chat with Ed McMahon and afterwards Carson spoke again about the strike saying: “We're delighted to be back. We're delighted to have the audience back, and we really hope the writers work out the differences and come back soon.”

When the writers came back, Carson was relieved, according to Sotzing.