I watched the Emmys tonight. Helaine recorded it, knowing we’d be home after 8:00.
Boy there are a lot of people on TV I don’t know!
With the show over, I have two questions. Is Ryan Seacrest the right guy to be host? And, why were there three obvious edits to censor material?
Seacrest first. I remember him on CNet TV. He was a correspondent on the show Richard Hart hosted. He was fine.
Am I surprised he’s hosting a huge, killer hit like American Idol? Absolutely. But he’s fine as a straight host.
No cheap jokes, please.
The Emmys normally have an entertainer as host. I don’t see Seacrest in that role. In fact, as the show opened up, Ray Romano basically took over the host’s job of doing a monologue.
That brings me to point two. Why was Roman censored? This was more than a beep. The full video feed cut away.
I’ve seen Ray Romano in person. He is not a blue comic. Even if he said a ‘curse,’ I’m convinced it wouldn’t have offended my mom or her mom (though it’s a little late to ask my grandma).
The same cutaway thing happened to Katherine Heigl and Sally Field.
Actually, with Heigl they didn’t cut away soon enough and so America got to see her mouth the word “shit.” Crude and inappropriate as it is, I’ve never understood why shit is considered a curse word. It has little to do with the more sexually oriented words that can get a network fined… or worse.
I believe Sally Field got pulled for saying goddamn. It’s not polite to say goddamn. It’s never been my choice to say that word on TV. But it’s Sally Field for heavens sake.
I must be missing something? What could Sally Field possibly say that would injure me?
I believe it was Letterman’s staff who began the tradition of having weird intros to the comedy writing nominees. That’s something I now look forward to. I enjoy it a lot.
I also liked the nice eulogy for Tom Snyder, pieced together from contemporaneous remarks by late night talk show hosts. Tom liked adulation. He would have enjoyed that genuine emotion.