Am I a happy camper? Hell, yes!
Actually, except for a few snubs in the nominations process, and two, maybe three of the awards, I'm pretty happy with the entire Emmy thing this year. Heck, I was just surprised we ran on time. (So was Bob Newhart, but we'll get to that later.)
And, yeah, my favorite show won, Outstanding Director, Outstanding Lead Actor, Outstanding Drama, hee, but that's not why I was happy.
(OK, I lie, it was, but there was other stuff too!)
First thing- the opening number. Lost, The Office, House, South Park... no show was safe as host Conan O'Brien dashed through them all with the grace, wit, and elegance of a geeky virgin on prom night. I may not always like his style, but this sort of thing suits him. He's actually a pretty good host, although I would have had him work the pacing of his opening monologue more. But, then, that was just the set-up for the musical number about NBC. Yes, I mentioned musical number, Conan O'Brien and NBC in the same paragraph. Here's a link to the monologue and musical bit, the NBC part starts at about 5:25. Ouch, kudos to NBC for not axing it.
From then on, it was a pretty standard Emmy presentation. A few of the presenters tried to be funny and weren't, tried to stay on their cues and didn't. There was fashion, good (and classic good) and evil, and the usual, um, eloquent acceptance speeches. The writer and director of My Name is Earl proved why that show is one of the funniest on TV, and Blythe Danner... well, I'm not sure what she was on about, do you? There was the tribute to Dick Clark (still living) and Aaron Spelling (passed on), as well as the traditional memorial montage (snif!). There weren't any real surprises, but nothing really sank it like the Titanic, either.
The running gag of the night was gamely endured by Mr. Bob Newhart, who was wheeled out in a plexi-glass container with exactly enough air to get him through, if the show didn't run over. After that, we had several check-ins with Mr. Newhart, each more panicked than the rest, and a few of the more canny presenters and recipients went with it, and finally he was released. According to Conan, 52% of the call-in viewers wanted him to live, 42% wanted him to die, and 6% called in just to say they didn't have an opinion. Hokey, yes, but cute nonetheless.
Funniest presenters? You have to ask?
Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, complete with ad-libs. Fun, no?
But how did I do in my predictions? Pretty darn good, if I do say so myself. (Better than my Oscar predictions at any rate.) Out of the 16 categories I listed, my heart and head got 10 of 'em right. My mistakes? Over-estimating the finale effect in two categories, under-estimating it in a third, and just being wrong in the rest. But thank the heavens none of my WTF! choices won. That would have been embarrassing, no?
So congrats to the winners, better luck next time to the rest, and I'm off to wait until January when my favorite EMMY WINNING series returns.
