Emmys, Schmemmys

 

I’m in a very perturbed mood at the moment, which is not conducive to reflections on Comfort TV. However, it’s ideal for discussing the Emmy Awards. This year’s ceremony is approaching, and I am already looking forward to my annual tradition of ignoring it completely.

There was a time when I loved the Emmys, from the moment the nominations were announced to the awards show itself, which paid due homage to the television of generations past while honoring the best shows and performances from the previous year. 

My Emmy disenchantment was a gradual phenomenon, that escalated as I watched brilliant, critically-acclaimed shows go virtually ignored (The Gilmore Girls, Buffy the Vampire Slayer), and the same actors win almost every year while equally deserving performances were overlooked. You can read more about this in last year’s Emmy rant.

But my biggest gripe with the Emmys, and one I acknowledge I am almost alone in expressing, is the placement of network shows and cable shows in the same categories. I don’t believe it is fair, and as a result of this iniquity cable shows now dominate in both nominations and wins.

Network television broadcasts are still regulated by the Federal Communications Commission, and are limited by standards and restrictions implemented by that government agency. We won’t debate here whether that is still appropriate or necessary (I think it is) – it means that the networks have to play by different rules.

Networks also have to select the programs they choose to air with an eye toward a larger viewing audience. HBO’s Girls draws about 800,000 to 1 million viewers, and it’s hailed as a hit. If a network series pulled that number it would be canceled.

Cable’s Emmy dominance, and the edgier fare it offers, have caused many to dismiss network television as boring and uninspired, a dinosaur on the path to extinction. Whether that prognosis proves accurate or not, network television still draws more viewers than cable TV, but its shows are not recognized by the Emmys because of the perception that all the good stuff is on cable. 

Why is any of this important? Because one of the ways we recognize that the television of decades past is worth celebrating and preserving is the number of Emmys these shows received. Even shows like Bewitched that did not receive a lot of Emmys were nominated often, an acknowledgment that the series was among the best situation comedies of its era.

Today’s network TV shows have largely been denied that measuring stick of achievement, because Emmy nominations and statues are going to shows on cable by at least a 3:1 margin.

My solution is to create two categories – broadcast Emmys and cable Emmys. It’s not so far-fetched, as we already have separate Emmy presentations for daytime shows and for local market productions. And there would be no shortage of competition, with eligible shows from four networks plus PBS and the CW.

Let’s look at just one category as an example – Best Actor in a Drama Series. This year’s nominees are Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad), Hugh Bonneville (Downton Abbey), Damian Lewis (Homeland), Kevin Spacey (House of Cards), Jon Hamm (Mad Men) and Jeff Daniels (The Newsroom).

That’s one network show, four from cable, and one from however you want to classify Netflix. If there was a separate category for broadcast TV, that would make room for equally deserved nominations for Nathan Fillion (Castle), Charles Esten (Nashville), Michael Emerson (Person of Interest), Jonny Lee Miller (Elementary) or John Noble (Fringe).

In the pre-cable era, all of these performances would have been nominated, along with Megan Hilty in Smash, and Madeleine Stowe in Revenge, and Dana Delaney in Body of Proof. You can find just as many deserving and overlooked candidates in the comedy categories.

Would an Emmy nomination for Dennis Quaid have saved Vegas from early cancellation? It was Emmy nominations that once convinced viewers to try a sitcom call Cheers that finished dead last in the ratings after its first season. Today, it would have been shunned for shows like Veep and Enlightened and Louie and Girls, and it would have disappeared, remembered only as another failed network newbie.

Just another reason why I won’t be watching the Emmys this year. 

Five Television Moments That Should Have Been Better

 

The fall TV season is fast approaching, and there are moments many of us are already looking forward to experiencing. Some will surpass expectations but most will fall short, which has always been the way with television. Here are five moments from the Comfort TV era that promised much but stumbled on delivery.

Lucille Ball and Carol Burnett Team-ups

If there were a Mount Rushmore for television comediennes, Lucille Ball and Carol Burnett would be among those immortalized. But when Carol and Lucy joined forces, the magic wasn't there. 

They had plenty of chances – Burnett guest-starred more than once on both The Lucy Show and Here’s Lucy, and Ball returned the favor with several appearances on Carol’s brilliant variety series. But none of their collaborations merit inclusion in a retrospective on either of their remarkable careers.

Their first team-up, in the 1966 Lucy Show episode “Lucy Gets a Roommate,” is probably the best. Carol plays a meek librarian who Lucy tries to coax out of her shell (with predictable but occasionally amusing results). I can recall only one memorable Carol Burnett Show sketch with Lucy, who clearly missed the rehearsal time she needed to perfect the comedy moments that became legendary on her own shows. In one 1969 appearance she and Carol played stewardesses on a Miami-bound plane. "Is that a Cuban accent?" Lucy asks passenger Harvey Korman. "What makes you say that?" he asks. Replies Lucy, "If there's one thing I know, sir, it's a Cuban accent!" That line earned the biggest laugh of the episode.  

Rescue from Gilligan’s Island

This one should have been a no-brainer. Gilligan’s Island was a syndication staple after its three year run ended in 1967, and there was obvious unfinished business with the castaways still stuck in their bamboo paradise in the final episode.

Closure was finally achieved in the 1978 TV movie Rescue from Gilligan’s Island, which reunited the original cast except for Tina Louise. The timing was perfect; ten years of build-up was just right, and the cast still looked enough like their characters so their reunion would be nostalgic and uplifting, rather than desperate and sad.

The movie earned an amazing 52 share of the audience, so it was undoubtedly a success in every way except creatively. If anything, Rescue was even dumber and more juvenile than an average episode of the series. One sequence with Gilligan paddling around in the water with a shark seems to go on for hours. Worse, its popularity paved the way for The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan’s Island, an even greater atrocity that featured the unforgettable image of Lovie Howell face-guarding Sweet Lou Dunbar. 

Diana Rigg in a Sitcom

I love Diana Rigg. She is in that very, very rare class of performers who can take an ordinary line of dialogue and make it compelling by sheer force of personal magnetism. Kate Jackson has it, as does Michael J. Fox and a select few others – maybe that will be a future blog topic.

Following her transcendent work in The Avengers (look it up, kids – this is the one without Iron Man) Rigg signed up to star in an American sitcom (for the paycheck, she later admitted), as a British divorcee who moves to New York to start a new life and a new career as a fashion coordinator at Butley’s Department Store.

Diana (1973) was not a terrible sitcom, but it was terribly conventional and, well, boring. Which is even more unexpected for a show with such a vivacious leading lady. It was canceled before the end of its first season.  

Police Squad!

The success of the Airplane! films established the joke-a-minute formula of writer/directors David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker, and the deadpan brilliance of actor Leslie Nielsen. But it was an approach that didn’t translate to television. Police Squad! debuted on ABC in 1982, and was canceled after just four of its six episodes aired.

Fans still remember this as a great miscarriage of justice (TV Guide ranked it #7 on their 2013 list of TV shows that were canceled too soon). But I kinda get why it didn’t work. The scattershot approach that made the films so unique became formulaic on the series – several jokes were repeated in every episode, such as the episode title on screen being different than what the announcer read, the faux ‘freeze frame’ behind the closing credits, and the murder of a “special guest star” at the beginning of each show.

Also, TV standards and practices being what they were in the 1980s, the show did not have the same leeway with the subtly risqué content that contributed to the best moments in the Naked Gun movies, which were inspired by the series.  

Barbara Eden on Dallas

While the timing was right for Rescue From Gilligan’s Island, it was not so fortuitous for another classic TV couple.

By the time Jeannie blinked her way into Ewing Oil, Dallas was limping through its 14th and final season. Viewers had already endured Bobby’s shower resurrection, a trip to Russia for no apparent reason, and the escalating embarrassment of Sasha Mitchell’s attempts to act. No one cared anymore and that apparently included the writers, who introduced Eden as corporate raider LeeAnn De La Vega. She went after J.R.’s company because – wait for it – he had jilted her in college. Really? Two TV icons and that’s the best they could do? 

Comfort TV Facebook Connections

 

When I was growing up in Skokie, Illinois, and I first started to watch television and become aware of actors and their roles, it was just a given that these famous people led very different lives from mine. They lived in Hollywood and appeared on the covers of People magazine and TV Guide. You could write them a letter but you knew they received thousands of them. If you were really lucky, you might get an autographed photo in return.

Today, we’re all friends on Facebook.

So many of the TV stars I grew up watching now keep me up to date on where they had lunch yesterday, or when they land a new role. They share photos of their homes and families, and invite me to “like” the causes and organizations they do. Sometimes they even wish me Happy Birthday.

Facebook friendships are not the same as real friendships, of course. But it’s still a curious experience to remember being a kid watching Family Affair, and thinking Cissy was so beautiful, and now I send her messages and she responds, no barriers remaining between celebrity and fan.

During my first frenzied months on the social media network I sent friend requests to several of my favorites, and most responded. But then I stopped before becoming a full-fledged Facebook star collector, and now I limit myself to those that I’ve either met in real life, or where there’s some other pre-existing connection, such as a mutual friend.

These are a few of my classic TV Facebook friends. They can be yours too.

John Schneider

I first met John when I was writing my companion guide to The Dukes of Hazzard. Now he keeps trying to sell me on a fitness program. I’ll think about it over my next pizza. 

Geri Reischl

Immortalized as “Fake Jan” on the legendary Brady Bunch Variety Hour, Geri has a wicked sense of humor and shares both memorable moments and the minutiae of her life with Facebook. And unlike many celebs, she doesn’t just post and run – she keeps the conversation going throughout the thread and is generous with her “likes.” She even poked me a few times, which was more fun than I expected. 

Gregory Harrison

I knew Greg pre-Facebook, though not well. He and his wife, ChiPs star Randi Oakes, were once fixtures on the 1980s competitions known as the Battle of the Network Stars. I had them all on tape and sent him copies of their appearances. I also interviewed him several years ago for a magazine article I wrote on the classic miniseries Centennial. He’s a fairly frequent poster, but usually it’s about something related to politics, and he and I are on opposite ends of that particular spectrum. We’ve had some rather intense exchanges over the last few years, but no one has severed the connection yet. 

Teri Copley

The first thing I discovered about Teri on Facebook is that she is a woman of very deep-rooted faith. I was 18 the year We Got it Made debuted on NBC. If you had told me I’d one day have a chance to chat with the goddess that played Mickey Mackenzie, I don’t think religion would have been my first topic of choice. Thirty years later, it’s a bond we share. And she’s still a knockout. 

Willie Aames

The last time I saw Willie Aames on TV was on the dreadful VH-1 series Celebrity Fit Club, where he looked like his life was falling apart. Now he works on an international cruise ship, seems happy and healthy, and posts amazing photos from ports of call around the world.

Paul Petersen

After his days on The Donna Reed Show, Paul established an organization called A Minor Consideration to help former child stars cope with a post-celebrity existence, and to make sure studios are treating kids like kids and not investment commodities. 

Shirley Jones

Mrs. Partridge isn’t around very often, and from the excerpts I’ve seen from her new biography, I don’t even want to speculate on what she’s doing when she’s not on Facebook.

Gloria Loring

I’ve never met Gloria Loring, but she sent me a friend request a couple of years ago. I don’t know how or why this happened, but if the woman who sang the theme to The Facts of Life wants to be friends, that’s fine with me. 

James Best

Another Dukes of Hazzard cast member, who is now a very fine painter.

Jennifer Runyon Corman

One of the few celebrities who ignored my Friend request was Susan Olsen. But if I couldn’t connect with Cindy Brady, I did become Facebook friends with the actress who played Cindy in A Very Brady Christmas. It was a better match anyway, as it turns out we have a lot in common – we’re both from the Chicago area, we have similar opinions on the issues of the day, and we both briefly dated Scott Baio in the 1980s. That last one may not be entirely true.