The 60th Annual Emmy Awards were presented this last weekend. As always, I don’t care who won. It’s just an honor just to be nominated! Yeah, I’m kidding. About that last part, not the one before it. But really, once you narrow a field down to five nominees, the fact that one is is called the “winner” can be put down to sheer arbitrary random luck. Truth is, finding five on any kind of TV show that’s worth noting at all is quite an achievement.

And the thing is, TV is as good as it’s ever been. I mean that. The ceremony put a lot of emphasis on television’s illustrious past, and it served as a reminder that this medium used to suck in ways that today’s spoiled viewers can’t even begin to comprehend. If you watched on Sunday, you may have noted a little piece that seemed to go on for 200 years, populated by the surviving members of the cast of Laugh-In, except the ones who went on to successful film careers. It was horrifying. What’s worse, it made me realize that Laugh-In was usually the same, except expert editors shaved away the uncomfortable pauses. 

And yet, Laugh-In was the funniest thing on TV for years. 

Please remember that American TV was three networks and a low-powered local independent station back then. All they had to do to hold on to viewers was not offend them, so every show was a race for the lowest common denominator. Newton Minnow called television “a vast wasteland” in the late fifties, and it just became more and more arid all the way into the cable era. 

So when you have a choice between THE OFFICE, DEXTER, PROJECT RUNWAY, THE HENRY ROLLINS SHOW, FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS, and reruns of everything that I had to grow up watching, just take a moment to get on your knees and thank your maker that you aren’t forced to pick up a book.

The festivities were a little surprising. Sure the Laugh-In cast nearly ruined my memories of the sixties, but Don Rickles patched them up again. That guy never disappoints. And Josh Grobin did a medley of TV themes - I swear to God, I had no idea that he had a sense of humor. At times he threw himself into it so far I thought he was Weird Al Yankovic. Also I loved the Tina Fey/Martin Scorsese commercial.  Every time.

My only four complaints about the show, when all is said and done are these: that Laugh-In thing, the unscripted opening by all five nominated reality show hosts (there’s a leap of faith for ya!), the traffic around the auditorium… funny story. I forgot that the show was going to be on and was completely surprised by the hubbub when I drove downtown to appear on Priscilla Leona’s radio show. How dare they slow me down!

And the final complaint - I wrote this whole entry during the show, as a way to make the long long ceremony interesting. I finished before the show ended. I don’t like to watch stuff where the ending doesn’t change anything.

-daniel k.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 22nd, 2008 at 3:44 pm and is filed under General, Television. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.