Writers strike be damned, Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien and Jimmy Kimmel, refreshed by imposed two-month vacations, returned to the trenches tonight and participated in some glorified busking. David Letterman and Craig Ferguson returned, as well, though they had their writers in tow and therefore were ostensibly able to put together more polished programs.

Locally, of course, the big news was Leno’s return, with his big-get guest, Republican Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who crossed the very line Democratic hopeful John Edwards joined in solidarity with the writers, and on the day before the Iowa caucuses. Leno wrote his own monologue – potentially a violation of WGA rules, depending on how they’re translated (NBC clearly believes itself to be in the clear) – and it wasn’t all that different from any monologue on any other given night. Of course, he had plenty of time to prepare this and the next few; no doubt they’ll feel more strained or much shorter or both if the strike continues for a protracted period of time.

True to form, Leno took a hot-button topic – the strike – and turned it into shtick: “It’s already cost the town over a half a billion dollars – five hundred million dollars! Or, as Paul McCartney calls that, ‘a divorce.’” Not a bad line, pretty good in fact, but it’s interesting how Leno was able to utterly sterilize something that’s affecting him personally.

But then, Leno, staunch professional that he is, was determined to make his return look as well-oiled as any of his performances. Huckabee came across as at least as affable and droll as any A-lister Leno might host, Emeril Lagasse and Leno traded not so thinly veiled d!ck jokes while whipping up some pepper steaks (“Take your tool and grab your meat”), and Leno was quippy as ever while taking questions from the studio audience, a bit one imagines we’ll be seeing a lot of over the ensuing weeks.

Leno told a surprisingly personal story about meeting up with his high school sweetheart many years later; when he came out of a break pretending to be on the phone with his wife, his band leader Kevin Eubanks popped what may have been the line of the night: “Did your wife ask if your old girlfriend was still hot?”

By contrast, O’Brien made no effort to mask his discomfort with working without the net his writers provide, and pointedly killed a lot of time with decidedly not-ready-for-primetime (or, even, late-night) antics. Still, he may have been funnier.

He entered sporting a beard he grew during the strike, then compared it via side-by-side images to the one sported by the young Kris Kringle in the cartoon “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” There was a montage of shots of Conan’s beard, he danced atop his set’s desk (then, acknowledging the limited entertainment value of his hoofing, imitated a Blofeldian producer, demanding, “Give the writers what they want!”), saw how long he could spin his wedding ring on his desk (for 36 seconds, short of his personal record – when someone in the audience implored him to give it another try, he replied, “Trust me – there’s plenty of time to do it again”), took a sip from his mug and declared, “That’s good water,” paused and noted proudly, “Killed some time!” hosted a tour of his office, displaying some of the gewgaws cluttering it, and played the video game “Rock Band” with some staff members.

Some of it was funny enough, but the undeniable subtext was, throughout, we wouldn’t be doing this crap and wasting your time were it not for the writers strike.

Interestingly, however, the most pointed attack on the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers came from Letterman’s show, which actually has the benefit of their writers. It opened with dancing chorines hoisting Writers Guild picket signs; Letterman, like O’Brien, came out with his strike beard, saying: “I know what you’re thinking: Dave looks like a missing hiker.” Bits were interrupted to make pleas on the behalf of the Writers Guild; intentionally lame segments showed what the show would’ve been like without having the writers around; the Top 10 list featured striking writers from other shows (including “The Daily Show,” “The Colbert Report” and, most intriguingly, “Late Night with Conan O’Brien”) listing comic demands.

All well and good, but you know what? Most of it was more strident than funny, as admitted in some of the material. At one point, stage hand Biff Henderson interrupted Dave’s monologue:

Biff: “When are the writers coming back?”

Dave: “They’re back, Biff.”

Biff: “Oh. (Laughs condescendingly) Sorry.”

And consider No. 2 on the Top 10 list, delivered by “Conan’s” Chris Albers: “I don’t have a joke – I just want to remind everyone that we’re on strike, so none of us are responsible for this lame list.”

… and that’s not what “Late Show with David Letterman” needs to be right now. Letterman needs to kick the living bejeesus out of shows without writers at this point and prove their worth instead of insisting upon it so incessantly.

Ferguson’s show opened with a nicely absurdist sketch featuring Ferguson as a shepherd in his native Scotland, tight with a very special sheep, followed by his promise in the wake of speculation that his show would get better guests than his competition: “This show will be the same lame crap we’ve always been. I make this pledge to you, people of America – this show will not be better!”

Conan vs. Ferguson seemed to be defined thusly: Conan's show went for 25 straight minutes without a commercial to prevent viewers from defecting to Ferguson, but Ferguson responded by having his show be heavy on scripted bits throughout, thereby trying to wrest viewers from Conan. Ratings reports ultimately will tell us who won this particular p!ssing match.

Meanwhile, over on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” Kimmel promised, “If you’re looking for a train wreck, we’ll be back with Andy Dick.”

As the writers strike continues, you won’t need Andy Dick for your train wrecks for these shows.