by Hank Brockett
For one, it was the last night of summer. Any walk outside could have told you that, but television weathermen —whose sole purpose in life is to make sure there isn’t going to be weather that musses the newscasters’ hair — kindly reminded us of the calendar date.
But we knew that was coming, eventually. It’s part of the package deal we made for a warm summer.
The other reason was featured in prime time, at the 54th annual Emmys. Last year, the television awards show was delayed twice because of Sept. 11. This year, the biggest controversy whether Ray Romano would finally win an Emmy. Ah, you’ve got to love business as usual.
Ol’ Ray did pick up the golden statue in one of the highlights of the 195-minute broadcast. But there’s much more to an awards broadcast than the winners and losers.
In case you missed it (or if you flipped the channel to watch the second episode of The Sopranos) here are a few of the highlights and lowlights.
Or, for all you city council wrap-up fans out there ...
The following briefs were taken from Sunday’s meeting of television elite:
• My cable package does not include E!, so I missed out on the usual Joan and Melissa Rivers bashing. Instead, I sat through a painful Packers-Lions game and continued mourning the Bears loss. Another opportunity for annoying fashion talk come and gone.
• Host Conan O’Brien is one of those polarizing television personalities. Some (including an unhealthy amount of college-age kids) swear by his “Late Night” show, while the rest of the world falls asleep during Jay Leno’s monologue. Don’t feel bad, the college kids do too, but they’re awake by Conan’s 11:35 p.m. start time. Leno’s predictably lame jokes have that affect on everyone.
O’Brien specializes in self-depreciating and self-referential humor, which was on full display Sunday. To those with televisions like the antiques dotting the center stage, the jokes may just fly over the head. But smart humor finds its own rules and rewards. Rule No. 1: If you have to do the obligatory Osbournes joke, you might as well throw in a random reference to The Price is Right.
• Those of us who watch all of the awards shows (well, unless we’re busy during the American Music Awards) have fallen victim to the MTV-ization of the process.
Each year, the cable network puts on two awards shows. In addition, they also produce an “uncensored” look back at the shows, with backstage news and notes.
The Emmys don’t have that luxury just yet. So we’re left to wonder, “I wonder what the guy is like who cues the orchestra when speeches go too long? Is he always a jerk?”
And while we’re on the subject, why doesn’t NBC pull an MTV and show old shows continuously on, say, MSNBC? I mean, run two shows from the early 1990s and you have a whole day’s worth of programming.
• Imagine the stories the “eye candy” girls could tell. You know, the attractive models who lead the stars offstage. And how, exactly, does one get a job like that? Does that job on your resume lead to other stage-exit-related jobs? They really need a website for this type of information.
• In the most disturbing image of the night (other than the frightening looks on the Sex and the City posse’s faces), NBC ran a commercial for a celebrity Fear Factor featuring ... you guessed it, the girl who played Rudy on The Cosby Show! Her fear? Getting run over by a monster truck. Really, I’m not making this up.
Somewhere, Theo’s wondering if his fear of clowns could be the key to a comeback.
• The Osbournes have officially reached the “painfully grimace and think about checking the score of the Bengals-Falcons game” territory of pop culture fame.
Will they be back next year? The Magic 8-ball says, “Not bloody likely.”
• In some sort of bizarre move, comedian Jon Stewart and Sting were competing in the same category (Best Performance in a Variety Show). The Stinger won, but is this really fair? Sure, Jon can’t hit the high notes in Roxanne, but Sting isn’t exactly the next Jerry Seinfeld. Now, Sting doing Weird Al-style musical comedy, that I’d watch.
• Random thought: Just about all the writers who won this year are outrageously bald. Man, Hollywood writers just can’t catch any breaks!
• In an update of colleague Bill Cate’s Oprah Watch 2002, she appeared at the Emmys to win some sort of humanitarian award. And while the dress she wore probably took up a few seats, rumors of obesity have been greatly exaggerated.
But as for the huge ego, that’s always expanding.
So there you have it, an awards show wrap-up with barely a mention of who won. Because while an Emmy or two might cause us to give a show another look, we’ll still watch what’s entertaining.
And if there’s one good thing about summer’s end, it’s the fresh crop of new and returning shows aiming to please. It’s almost enough to distract us from falling temperatures and fading suntans.
The Northern Star Home Page
The Internet Movie Database
What other critics think - The Rotten Tomatoes Site