"Let's read these funny lines they wrote for us" - 2008 Emmy Awards

The 60th Annual Emmy Awards sure spent a lot of time dwelling on the past, not enough time showcasing just why the current crop of nominees were nominated, and too much time with our 5 painfully unfunny hosts. The show drew the wrong type of attention on Monday morning, as the accomplishments of some deserving Emmy winners like Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Bryan Cranston, and shows like “Mad Men” and “30 Rock” were overshadowed by the deluge of criticism: winner’s speeches cut very short, especially when they got even vaguely political; not enough clips showcasing this year’s nominated performances, many of which could use more viewers; too much time showing clip packages of the past; and yes, the poor performance of the hosts. Reality, in fact, bites.

Somewhere up the ABC food chain, someone had the idea to have the Emmy hosting duties shared by the inaugural Outstanding Reality Show Host nominees: Jeff Probst (who won that category), Tom Bergeron, Howie Mandel, Ryan Seacrest, and Heidi Klum. Like a group project in high school, they were assigned to come up with a way to work together and to do what they were nominated for: entertain the crowd while keeping the show moving. And just like high school, when presentation time came around, it became apparent that they hadn’t prepared, and were in fact, winging it. They claimed they couldn’t sort out who would do what, which isn’t really surprising given egos and the fact that they all tend to work best as individuals.

After the drubbing the Fatal Five of Hosting took this morning, they’ll be lucky if next year’s Outstanding Reality Show Host Emmy doesn’t get moved to the non-televised Technical Awards presentation. Their opening bit was an attempt at Seinfeldian humour with “The Nothing Bit”, which was 15 minutes of them talking over each other about how they had nothing prepared. It was awkwardly bad, like when you were watching those Muppet sketches where Fozzie Bear would do stand-up. And like those sketches on “The Muppet Show”, the humour came from the hecklers, as many of the celebrity presenters started using the opening as a punchline by presenters throughout the night:

"What if I just kept talking for 12 minutes, what would happen?" Jeremy Piven asked while accepting an Emmy for playing the "Entourage" agent, Ari. "That was the opening."

Neil Patrick Harris: “Thanks To Howie Mandel's Prattling, Our Bit Has Been Cut”
Kristin Chenowith: “Bitter, party of two.”

And remember, those hosts drew a salary for that. It's their day-job.

Probst and Seacrest looked embarrassed, Mandel came off like a blowhard who couldn’t let anyone get a word in, leaving Klum and Bergeron to flounder out there.

The bit where Tom Begeron and William Shatner stripped down Heidi Klum, pulling her tearaway tux to reveal hotpants and a halter top, was just as uncomfortable and tasteless as it sounds. It left a bad aftertaste, and still lingered there two hours later when Brooke Shields and the usually reliably funny Craig Ferguson did a bit about how much Craig respected Brooke’s body of work, which ended with Brooke’s “punchline” of “Is that your hand on my ass?” Nothing says comedy like sexual harassment? Just awful, especially on a night when Glenn Close commended the smart funny women she was nominated with, or when the accomplishments of remarkable women like Tina Fey, Christina Applegate, Chandra Wilson, and Laura Linney should be lauded.

It took 30 minutes before anything remotely funny or entertaining happened, as Tina Fey and Amy Poehler kicked of the presentations and demonstrated how to BE PREPARED AND BE FUNNY. On accepting the Emmy for Best Supporting Comedy Actor, Jeremy Piven kissed Tina and Amy, and then kissed Amy’s baby belly, a funny moment which distracted me from the fact Neil Patrick Harris from “How I Met Your Mother” and Rainn Wilson from “The Office” were both robbed, in a season where these second bananas each got to show some humanity and nuance from these characters this season, and 3-time winner Piven’s show “Entourage” had a pretty bland season last year. At least Piven seems genuinely appreciative when he wins.

Now the job of a host is to keep the show moving, and as Jeff Probst admitted in his acceptance speech for Best Reality Show Host, the show was running long because of them. It snowballed all night, as sometime around the second hour it seemed like they stopped showing clips of the nominated shows and performances, and most of the presenters cut there introductions to allow the winners more time to speak.

Add in that the Emmys were really playing off the winners quickly, even cutting luminaries like Glenn Close short, and especially when anyone got vaguely political.

Amidst this blackhole of freedom of speech and comedy, there actually were some genuinely wonderful moments:

The night took an absurdly funny twist when presenter Ricky Gervais, upon seeing the clip where Steve Carrell picked up Gervais’s Emmy last year, said “Look at his stupid face”. He then turned to Steve Carrell in the audience, haranguing him until he relinquished the Emmy back to Gervais “I sat through Evan Almighty: give me my Emmy!” When Gervais went into the audience and threatened to tickle Steve Carell into giving him his Emmy, the director should have jumped on Gervais’s ear piece and said “Mr. Gervais, this is great. Would you actually mind taking the hosting duties from here?”

Many shows got awards that were disproportionate to the ratings they received. My beloved “30 Rock” was the big winner last night. Alec Baldwin won Best Comedy Actor, and the submitted clip was the classic Therapy Session which, when Randy and I first saw we proclaimed “That’s the Emmy for him”. Tina Fey cleaned house, winning awards for both acting and writing, as well as winning Best Comedy:

Fey actually won three awards, for producing, writing and starring in "30 Rock," and she gave three perfect speeches. For the writing trophy, she said "It's great to be a writer, because if you're at a wedding or something and you tell people you're a writer, they're less interested in talking to you than if you tell them you're an actor -- which is great." For the acting trophy, she thanked her parents "for somehow raising me to have confidence that is disproportionate to my looks and abilities. Well done, that is what all parents should do!" For the third and final speech after "30 Rock" won for best comedy, she plugged the show's premiere date and all the platforms where you can watch it. – Alan Sepinwall, NJ.com

And I did let out a cheer when Bryan Cranston took the Best Drama Actor trophy, for his starring role on “Breaking Bad” (AMC) as a science teacher with terminal cancer, who becomes a crystal meth dealer in order to provide for his family after his death. He’d been nominated 3 previous times in the comedy category for playing Dad on “Malcolm in the Middle” with no wins, so it was sweet to see “the restraining order has been lifted” as he got near his golden friend.

With the exception of “30 Rock” (NBC), none of the major networks made much of a showing in the trophies last night, as basic cable ruled the night. HBO’s John Adams mini-series made off with a 13 trophy haul, AMC’s “Breaking Bad” and “Mad Men”, HBO’s “In Treatment”, and FX’s “Damages” were the big winners. ABC took a beating: they spent 3 hours showcasing shows on the other networks, and the only trophy to go to a show on their network was Jean Smart’s Best Supporting Actress win for “Samantha Who?” and Best Direction to Barry Sonnenfeld, for the first episode of “Pushing Daisies”, a show which ABC studio execs bounced him from directing due to the costs he ran up. Karma sucks, don’t it?

And yet another Emmy mis-step, as the show jammed in as many 60th Anniversary clip packages as possible, but couldn’t find time to show clips of “Mad Men”, “Breaking Bad”, or “30 Rock”, all shows that while critically acclaimed, could really use the exposure and ratings boost that could come from the Emmys showing why these performances deserved awards. I say move the retrospectives to a separate one-hour special and highlight the current crop of shows.

Two of the biggest highlights came from the old school. Steve Martin, who got his start as a writer on “The Smothers Brothers Variety Show” in the 60s, was on hand to present a commemorative Emmy for writing to Tommy Smothers. The story goes that the show was so volatile politically that CBS cancelled it, essentially blackballing Smothers. Tom elected to leave his name off the writers list when they submitted to the Emmys that year and the show won the award. So 40 years later, he got the award he should have been a part of, giving an excellent speech that gave showed the 71 year old hadn’t lost touch with the world:

“There's nothing more scary than watching ignorance in action, so I dedicate this Emmy to all people who feel compelled to speak out, and not afraid to speak to power, and won't shut up, and refuse to be silenced'' - Tom Smothers

Another truly stirring moment occurred when self-professed D-List celebrity Kathy Griffin and 82 year old comedy legend Don Rickles came out to present. “GEETTTT UPPPPPPPPP!!!” Kathy Griffin commanded, as the shell-shocked audience smartened up and showed Rickles the proper respect with a standing ovation. And Don Rickles, 80-plus years old, hasn’t lost a step, first moved by the outpouring of appreciation, then doing what he does best, showing his disdain for the material the Emmys had been handing out and adlibbing his way into the biggest laughs of the night. Eventually Kathy urged him to get back to the script, to which he replied sarcastically "Yes, let's read these funny lines they wrote for us”, cackling at a scripted joke from Griffin that fell flat. At that point the wheels came off the show and I don’t recall any other presenters really making an effort to follow the teleprompter. And it was a brilliant reward for saving the night (yes really) when Rickles won an Emmy for Best Performance in a Variety or Music Program for “Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project”.

Josh Groban’s performance of a medley of 30 famous TV theme songs was goofy and fun, with Josh doing a very convincing Cartman during the South Park theme.

Just reading various articles on the post-Emmy fall out, here are some popular suggestions for future hosts, most based on who was actually funny and charming on the show:

• Steve Carell and Ricky Gervais
• Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert
• Kristin Chenowith and Neil Patrick Harris
• 5 Late Night Guys – Conan, Stewart, Ferguson, Kimmel, Colbert
• Don Rickles and Kathy Griffin
• a block of wood

And the ever popular write-in vote for Hugh Laurie, an engaging performer who Fox decided not to use last year, as they didn’t think the audience would “get” Hugh Laurie being naturally British when they were used to his American accent on his show “House”.

At any rate, at least consider bringing Conan O’Brien back, who last brought the funny by hosting in 2006. One of my favourite bits involved Don Rickles best friend, the equally legendary Bob Newhart. To encourage winners to keep the speeches short and to keep the show moving, Conan brought out Bob Newhart in a Plexiglas box, claiming that there was only 2 and a half hours of oxygen in the box, so if the show ran long, “Bob Newhart will die”. Cut to the expression on Bob’s face of “um, pardon me?”

And with that, we cut to your regularly scheduled programming.

Full list of winners of the 2008 Emmy Awards

Backstage coverage from Entertainment Weekly including some funny stuff from Tina Fey and Jeremy Piven