Press conferences with network execs get a bit more scripted every year, with "remarks," usually read from a TelePrompTer, often running for 15 to 20 minutes before the Q&A begins. Earlier this week, CBS News president Andrew Heyward even pulled an Ari Fleischer, attempting to call only on reporters he knew by name -- a fairly select group in a room that holds about 200 -- and sparking a small walkout by a few of us who think the White House press corps should try this occasionally, too.

No one's quite as much a control freak, though, as NBC entertainment president Jeff Zucker, who likes to station a 60-inch monitor at the back of the room so he can walk and talk while reading even his most offhand-sounding attempt at humor word for word, thus not having to glance down even once. My own theory is that Zucker, the shortest of the entertainment presidents (if you except UPN's Dawn Ostroff, who's even shorter than I am), wants to keep that chin as high off the ground as possible, but it's always fun to turn around while he's talking and read the closed-caption version.

This morning, though, the control extended to "Will & Grace's" Sean Hayes, who introduced Zucker, and whose every quip could be read from the back-of-the-room monitor even as he was delivering it.

Including the part where he was supposedly asked to "stretch" his remarks.

Do they think we're idiots?

Please don't answer that.