The Emmys

My friend BM works in television so she had a little Emmy watching party last night. I hadn't seen the Emmys in a couple of years and I must say that I was unimpressed over all. Here is my own best and worst list:

THE BEST
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1. Ricky Gervais gets his Emmy back.
Gervais introduced a video montage of how to give an acceptance speech which ended with the video of last year when Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert gave his Emmy to Steve Carrell. Gervais walked off the stage and demanded his Emmy back from Steve, asking him whether or not he'd seen Ghost Town yet since he sat through two hours of Evan Almighty while Stewart and Colbert were laughing in the background.

2. Don Rickles goes off script.
Don Rickles and Kathy Griffin were the pair of introducers and Rickles mocked and left the teleprompter script. Every time Kathy Griffin tried to go back to the script, Rickles made another jab. Very funny.

3. Laura Linny's acceptance speech.
After winning for her role in John Adams, she ended her speech with subtle jab at the Republican Party by saying it was amazing what a bunch of "community organizers" could do. Nicely done, Laura, nicely done.

4. Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert
Colbert's semi-endorsement of John McCain using prunes ("I don't want to stop eating prunes. What could go wrong?!") was very funny.

5. Josh Grobin has a sense of humor.
In the middle of the Emmys, Josh Grobin did a musical medley of a bunch of different television theme songs. A lot of the critics hated this, but I thought it was really funny and he seemed to have a real sense of humor about it. I was expecting him to take it seriously, but instead he rapped the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song. Nice.

6. Tommy Smothers
Steve Martin's intro into giving Tommy Smothers his honorary Emmy was funny and touching - as was the acceptance speech that Smothers gave.

7. Jeremy Piven
"What would happen if I just talked about nothing for 12 minutes for my acceptance speech? Oh wait that was the opening."

THE WORST
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1. The Hosts
Who thought it was a good idea to have five reality television hosts host the Emmys? They were not funny and blathered on and on about nothing over and over and over again. All of their jokes fell flat and Howie Mandell couldn't shut up. The best part of the show was when it started to run long and the hosts were cut.

2. The Amazing Race wins again?
Enough is enough.

3. Jeremy Piven wins again?
Enough is enough.

4. Laugh-in Reunion
The Laugh-In reunion wall of jokes was a good idea in concept but sometimes jokes from 40 years ago don't translate that well into the present.

5. Mary Tyler Moore's arms.
She is officially too old to wear a sleeveless garment.