Photo: Andrew Marantz

1. Moderator Virginia Heffernan (online media critic at The New York Times) wanted to push the notion that the Internet is fundamentally changing TV comedy, but the comedy writers were not having it. That impasse was reached within the first two minutes of the panel and then explored for the next two hours. “So, you guys really don’t think the Internet is changing the way you work?” said Heffernan. “No, not really,” said the writers. Over. And over.

2. “I don’t even have a computer,” said Jim Downey, and he was not joking. Having worked at Saturday Night Live since 1976, Downey is clearly qualified to talk about television writing. But as the last person in America to hold out on the computer fad, he had absolutely nothing to say about the “Internet” part.

3. The other three writers had some predictably cranky things to say about the Internet. Peter Tolan (Rescue Me) thinks it’s too democratic. Al Jean (The Simpsons) thinks it’s too negative. “Most of it is negative,” Rory Albanese (The Daily Show) agreed. “Except for the porn.”

4. The Simpsons producers were the ones who leaked the video of Homer trying to vote for Obama. I knew it!

5. Extrapolating from tonight’s four-person sample, we can deduce that 100 percent of comedy writers are white men; 75 percent of comedy writers dress in black sport coats; 75 percent of comedy writers wear black-rimmed glasses (the other 25 percent keep their glasses in the pocket of their sport coats); and 0 percent of comedy writers will read this post, because they don’t really care about the Internet.