On last night’s Late Night, Jimmy Fallon decided to turn the writing duties over from his crack staff of seasoned (yet apparently overworked) comedy professionals to the hive mind of the Twitterverse.

Tweeters were encouraged to write comedy gems in response to the hash tag suggestion #whydonttheymakethat. The staff plucked the best tweets and Jimmy read them aloud on Monday Night’s broadcast.

While some were funny, and some were familiar riffs on other comedians’ works (compare the “shrunken elephant” idea to Paul F. Tompkins‘ House Bear bit), this begs the question: Is this the future of comedy writing, throwing out premises to the hive mind and airing the best bits?

I don’t think it’s too far-fetched to imagine there’s a suit somewhere in the bowels of 30 Rockefeller Center thinking that they can program an entire hour of clever responses to twitter hash tag premises. They wouldn’t have to pay a writing staff, they could get an easily disposable, easy on the eyes host or hostess, and with millions of Twitter users, they’ll have huge, completely free pool to draw from.

They could even use the America’s Funniest  Home Video model of content acquisition and award some kind of cash prize for funniest tweet of the week. It’s still cheaper than salary and benefits for a whole writing staff.

Comedy writers should be shaking in their collective boots.