Defamer's Emmy Moments
Yes, we know that we said that we were going to liveblog the Emmys telecast, but when the show opened with John Travolta recounting what it was like to accept an award on behalf of deceased The Boy in the the Plastic Bubble co-star Diana Hylund in 1977, we realized that no amount of alcohol would allow us to track three hours of profound boredom in real time, hit pause on the TiVo, and went to get a bite to eat. Oscar's crayon-eating little brother would have to wait. We returned, belly full, to distill the show into a collection of Emmy Moments, presented here in chronological order:
Above, an Emmy producer whispers into Jon Stewart's earpiece during the show's opening musical act: "Jon, baby, the camera's coming your way. Give me a mix of dread and total incomprehension as you realize you're watching Earth, Wind, and Fire sing 'September' with the lyrics modified to celebrate television—then, BAM! Here come the Black Eyed Peas, the hottest band for fifteen minutes of 2004. Perfect! You're a pro's pro, Jonny."
For the first time since Nicolette Sheridan, Marcia Cross, and Eva Longoria held down Teri Hatcher at the Desperate Housewives first season wrap party while Felicity Huffman gave her a Crazy-Glu Brazilian wax, all five Housewives appeared together at the same event. After Longoria mangled a self-conscious joke indicating that she wasn't nominated for an Emmy, Felicity Huffman interrupted her scripted banter to helpfully underscore Longoria's lack of comic chops thusly: "CLUNK!" They're going to have such a fun set this year!
Upper right: Sean Hayes pretends to sleep through the announcement of the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series award, demonstrating the subtle comic chops at play in a typical episode of Will & Grace. Bottom left: Entourage's Jeremy Piven steels himself against the buggery that his peers will deliver an instant later, when Brad Garrett wins for Everybody Loves Raymond. We're sure Piven drowned his misery in a couple of struggling actresses later that evening.
Donald Trump and Megan Mullally yelp their way through their "Emmy Idol" rendition of the Green Acres theme song. We're not sure how the Emmy people pulled this off, but blood poured from the speakers of our television after Trump crooned the first verse. A nice touch.
In a clip from The Tonight Show, Glenn Close deep-throats a water bottle. Not as sexy as it sounds, as Close was trying to force the blunt end of the bottle into her brain and end the suffering of listening to Jay Leno's voice at close range.
Everybody Loves Raymond's Doris Roberts celebrates her 34th consecutive Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series win by hiring two strong, young fellas* to tend to her every sexual whim.
[*Not pictured. The boys in the picture are her grandchildren. Get your minds out of the gutter, sickies!]
Ellen DeGeneres asks her producers to write a bit in which she might "accidentally" capture some women peeing on camera; producers oblige by having the host do a remote from the ladies room.
Winning an Emmy for writing in a comedy series, Arrested Development's Mitchell Hurwitz says what we're all thinking: "We'd be remiss if we didn't point out the fact that the Academy has twice rewarded us for something that you people won't watch."
CBS overlord Les Moonves applauds after listening to Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather's moving tribute to fallen colleague Peter Jennings, then wonders if he can get away with permanently replacing Rather on the nightly news with his talentless wife, Big Brother 6 host Julie Chen.
Moonves would approve as Conan O'Brien rips on NBC while presenting the award for best lead actress in a comedy series: "This category features five remarkable women, who all have something in common. Each in their own way has sent my network into the ratings toilet. By the way, NBC's season starts and ends tomorrow." Sing it, Conan.
Felicity Huffman wins the award, then hugs un-nominated co-stars Eva Longoria and Nicolette Sheridan, who do the best acting of their lives by looking as if they don't want to yank Huffman's hair until brain matters oozes out of her eye sockets. Longoria and Sheridan later draw straws to see who would get to defecate in Huffman's limo first.
James Spader wins his second award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, giving the best victory speech of the night: "So there I was at the Chateau with a 17-year-old Bobby Downey Jr. The three hookers had been dead for about fifteen minutes and Bobby was already tearing through their purses, convinced that they were lying when they said they didn't have any horse. For reasons that are still unclear to me, Bobby starts eating tubes of their lipstick. So I turn to Bobby and I say, 'How fucking crazy would it be if I won two Emmys in a row for the same character, but on different shows?' Bobby pauses, looks up at me, his mouth saturated red with drugstore lipstick, then cold cocks me with the rotary phone on the nightstand. I wake up five hours later in a jail cell. Hey, that's drugs."
