By Michael Glennon
The 56th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards kicked off at the Shrine Auditorium Sunday night with an advertisement for the new Buick LaCrosse. With a near total lack of A-listers on the red carpet for the pre-show, Buick was able to steal the spotlight for a good 30 seconds, while a well dressed “little person” described the finer points and styling of this most illustrious vehicle. While most networks attempt to hide their corporate sponsorships in subtle ways, or place them in appropriate places, the heads of ABC decided to forgo nuance for a full-on hard sell in the middle of the product placement orgy that is the red carpet. It wouldn’t have mattered if Buick made shoes and Debra Messing or Dennis Franz happened to be wearing them, or even if Messing arrived in a Buick LaCrosse with Franz on her, but by placing one of the hosts of the show in the most generic of automobiles, it ruined the sanctity of the event.
Over on the E! Channel, Star Jones was taking over carpet munching duties for Joan Rivers. Looking fabulous from the waist up (the only way the cameras would shoot her), Jones showcased her talents as a sycophant without peer. She told celebrities how much she loved them and how great they looked and in one instance she told Messing she was the greatest female television star since Lucy. All of this coming from the woman who thinks Payless shoes are the greatest thing since deep fried Oreo cookies.
Back on ABC, Kermit and Miss Piggy were sharing pre-show hosting duties with the other puppets, easily making them the most famous couple on the red carpet. Kermit looked about the same as he always has, but Miss Piggy was one hot piece of curly pigtail. Has she recently discovered the shape shifting powers of Trimspa? Or is it her new Rachel meets Farrah haircut? The jury is still out, but young Hollywood better take notice, this bacon sizzles!
After an hour of couture galore, the awards ceremony began. Garry Shandling took the stage to perform an opening monologue straight out of the Big Book of Award Show Monologues. He bombed a few times, especially during the “Garry’s Door” reality show joke that became a running gag throughout the night, but he eventually won the crowd over and jumped right into the self congratulating portion of the evening.
“And the Emmy for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series goes to… David Hyde Pierce.” You all remember Frasier? Most people thought it ended five years ago when it stopped being funny, but it turns out it limped across the finish line this past spring. It can be assumed that because this was its last season Pierce won, but that would be a cynical take on it. Nobody likes a cynic. Everybody likes Frasier. Apparently.
HBO took home the next couple awards with Michael Imperioli and Cynthia Nixon winning best supporting awards for their work on The Sopranos and Sex in the City respectively. He wore a lot of stripes. She looked nice. It was then time for a commercial break.
In case you haven’t seen it, Buick’s advertisement for the LaCrosse is easily the most annoying advertisement in circulation today. Lasting a mere 15 seconds and featuring the worst cover of “Paperback Writer” in existence (Thank you B-52s. You can seriously break up now). This advertisement peppered the award show like land mines on a golf course.
Coming back from the commercial, it was time to award the comedy writers for all their hard work. This was a fun category because the writers prepared little video skits before hand. They were genuinely hilarious. It was nice to see that some of the writers finally got to share the spot light. TV without writers would be like watching The Real World all the time, so it was nice to see them get some respect. “Arrested Development” won.
Skipping along, Jeffery Wright won Best Supporting Actor in a Mini Series (Angels in America won for every category it was nominated), the director of the Emmys went mental with joy when he won Best Direction for his work on the Oscars, Sharon Stone looked hot in a low cut lavender satin dress, Mary-Louise Parker looked very sexy in her dress (like Vamperella), and The Daily Show won The Most Awesome Show Ever Award.
The highlight of the evening occurred when two random, regular people were chosen because they were random and regular to join Garry Shandling on the stage. These two were escorted out in headphones and eye masks. When the restraints were removed, the 600 million regular people sitting at home all over the world got to witness the beauty that is regular people overcome with emotion on a Hollywood stage.
And then some more awards were given out.