Before we put a cork in our 2008 Emmys coverage, we’re gonna do one last item in the hopes that we can help the telecast not suck so hard next year…
Name ONE THING you’d change/introduce to make the ceremony more enjoyable.
Mine, as previously pitched in our live blog: Have the late-night writing staffs nominated for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program pen the patter for the presenters.
(A) The videos they submit for their category — i.e. The Colbert Report’s, pictured — are always the best part of the show. (B) These people are used to writing jokes for which celebrities are a punchline. (C) Divide the telecast among the five nominees, and that’s really only an extra half-hour of television we’re asking them to script. So I don’t want to hear that they’re "too busy," especially in a non-election year.
Your turn.
One last pimping of look at our Emmys coverage:
Emmys: 2008’s Best/Worst Moments
Emmy Fashion: Best and Worst Dressed
EW Emmy Party Portraits: Bid in Our Benefit Auction and Own One!
Ausiello at Emmys: 12 TV Scoops
2008 Emmys: Who got snubbed? Which winners delighted you? (A.K.A. Slezak continues to mourn Vanessa Williams’ loss.)
Emmy hosts: How’d you (dis)like the reality-show quintet?
Live-blogging the Emmys telecast!
Live-blogging E!’s Emmy red-carpet pre-show! (A.K.A. Mandi finds a way to mention David Boreanaz and Gale Harold in the same post.)
Comments (1-30) of 156 Add your comment
Cut the special tributes and retrospectives in half, just assume that you’ll run late, then get a good host who actually knows how to adlib in case you actually are running early!
Incorporate clip segments of classic show into the advertising breaks to save time for the actual live stuff. Cut speeches after a fifth name-drop/thank you to encourage winners to actually say something.
honestly, i thought the best part of the emmys this year was jimmy presenting best reality show host. he used the reality format in a great way. i think the reality show host nominees hosting the emmys was a great idea, just poorly executed. it was clear that no one stepped up and said – here’s what we should do. there were just too many cooks in the kitchen. i would have loved if each one of the hosts did skits like their show with tv stars as contestants. bring on paula, randy, and simon to judge acceptance speeches. have heidi, michael, and nina judge presenters dresses. or include more of the actors in pre-tapped skits that mock the shows their one and run in between presenters. this way we don’t have banter, we just have comedy. make it an event. give us stuff we’ve never seen before and we’ll never see again.
Nix having a host/hosts altogether. Rely heavily on vignettes and funny shorts, and place more responsibility on the presenters being entertaining enough. I mean seriously, is it too much to ask to have these high-end actors and actresses actually prepare for an event like this? Considering how much cheese they make for accepting the tough responsibility of reading a teleprompter and looking cute and/or smoldering and/or endearingly airheaded, I highly doubt that such a request would be torturously burdensome.
More inspired presenter pairings – Kathie Griffith and Don Rickles worked. David Boreanaz and the Hills chick did not. John Stewart and Steven Colbert are ALWAYS presenting together – split them up. Have an older TV personality/legend present with a younger one.
That’s easy: Flight of the Conchords, with a little help from the Daily Show/Colbert writers if they need it.
Albi the racist dragon at the Emmy’s = GOLD
Let Ricky Gervais, Jon Stewart, Steve Carell, and Steven Colbert co-host and co-write the show next year. Cut the neverending montages. Hilarity ensues!
1.Let Ricky Gervais, Jon Stewart, Steve Carell, and Steven Colbert host and Flight of the Conchords, Steven Lynch, Joel McHale, Tina and Conan help with the writing.
2. A Kids in the Hall reunion
3. An SCTV reunion
4. Someone makes fun of Bindi the Jungle girl because she’s annoying.
Just get rid of the Miniseries/Made-for-TV Movie categories…can’t they be lumped with creative arts? They’re not movies and they’re not TV shows…They take too long and usually one of them wins most of the awards (John Adams, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Band of Brothers, etc…) Leave it to the standard 30min-1h shows and there’d be no need to cut out the presenters bits!
Lots of great ideas here already. The key to a great Emmy Telecast is the host. The five hosts last night were such a downer that it dragged the rest of the show with it. But there we’re some bright spots. Gervais trying to get his last year’s Emmy from Carrell, Stewart and Colbert and the prunes. Kathy Griffith (who I’m not usually crazy about) and Don Rickles (just his entrance music alone is da bomb). Any one of them should host. Maybe even bring back Conan or Steve Martin. No more reality show hosts/contestants to host or even present. The Hills chick was so boring (Why is she even picked to present? If you’re going to pick a reality star to present, get Christian “Mr. Fierce” Siriano; at least he has personality to spare.) I felt bad for the Bones guy (can’t spell his name, but you know who I mean).
I absolutely agree with leaving the Miniseries/Movie awards with the Creative Arts Emmys, because they take forever, are usually dominated by just one or two movies, and aren’t actually TV shows. However, I would consider putting some of the categories from the Creative Arts Emmys into the live telecast. Wouldn’t it be great if all of the nominated original songs could be performed? This year’s winner was “I’m F*ing Matt Damon” and last year’s was “D*ck in a Box” – people would definitely tune in to see that!
@dma69
you mean the “The Bones” guy, or at least Heidi does.
Oh, I’d also love to see the Creative Arts nominees for Best Original Choreography perform on the Emmys broadcast, as well! If that takes too long, let’s just see the Choreography and Original Song winners on the live show.
I absolutely agree, mscisluv. Who knew there were such entertaining categories in the field of TV entertainment? The whole Creative Arts “separa-cast” always seems weird to me. Which group of elitists decides that Kathryn Joosten and Tim Conway only deserved a post-win shout-out? My Sketchy Alert went off at that point.
bring Ellen back! At least she was entertaining
Ricky Gervais for host! His delightful brand of awkward comedy would be 10 times less painfully awkward than this year.
I really liked the Ricky Gervais bit. He was hilarous – hopefully they’ll get him to host next year’s Emmys.
Whoa Hannah! I just got chills!! well, you know what they say about ‘great minds’ and all that!
There are always the obvious ones (better host, no ‘wrap it up’ speech music, better patter, make Emmys shorter, etc), but I’m going to go with something a little different and a bit more respectful (and the same can go for all other awards shows): Mute the audience during the ‘In Memoriam’ tributes. It’s bad enough they save the most ‘important’ celebrities for the end of these tributes, but then we also have to hear the audience clapping for all the people they’re most familiar with, making the whole thing a popularity contest. Its just kinda disrespectful for all the other people that just passed that nobody clapped for. If we cut the audience, everyone gets a just & equal tribute.
I would really really love to see CLIPS of the actual performances that the actors/actresses submitted for their nominations. And Clips from the episodes that the shows submitted. That to me, is usually one of the best parts! Put that back in, instead of the ridiculous banter and montages!!
1) a pet peeve – do the “in memoriam” as a commercial bumper without live mikes – they’re dead already, stop with the who’s the most popular applause
2)Instead of the red carpet pre-show – do a 1/2 hour creative arts recap and then 1/2 red carpet hosted by Jimmy Kimmel or Craig Ferguson no more “celebrity show reality hosts” yuck.
3)Group the awards so that each set of presenters gives both the male and female award in performance and double up on the writing awards in the same way – make sure the presenters make sense for the award they’re giving out
4)do anything musical within the first hour of the show – do anything that needs extended clip presentation in hours 2 and 3.
5)have Ellen DeGeneres, or Kristen Chenowith or Whoopi Goldberg or the guy from Cash Cab (single best game show on tv ever)be the host with personality but who doesn’t make the show about them. A good host is a good maitre’d – move people to their spots and be ready to sooth or encourge those who are waiting.
I thought that the Emmys this years seemed so pedestrian, like they weren’t really trying, or the people responsible had never put on an awards show before. The last half seemed so rushed, yet unfunny bits were left in.
To improve, it should have more vignettes or taped skits, less host time and more presenters time. I would much rather see the presenters do something a bit more than “the nominees are.. the winner is”
hosts hosts hosts. it is all about the hosts. either let conan do it again. or give it to either jon/stephen/steve/ricky
i would really appreciate it if people didn’t clap during the ‘in memoriam’. it’s really trouble that some people receive more applause than others…how rude.
there were too many awards for the specials and movies – it seemed like the same 3 made-for-tv movies were nominated for everything during a solid hour of the program. perhaps cut that down to just the best one of the year, and best actor/actress.
take out the categories for best miniseries/tv movie. put IN the categories for best guest star (because it’s usually such fabulous people!) and also include the original songs in the live telcast!
Stop nominating and awarding tired old shows. Stop nominating and awarding people that have won multiple times (I’m looking at you Jeremy Piven, I would appreciate it if you would FedEx your award to Rainn Wilson). Maybe leave the nominations and voting to the public instead of the industry. Why should the average viewer care about stuff we can’t vote on?
ok i like too watch the emmys but some stuff was just boring @sucked ok get a better music guests grobin sucked a big cigar ok imean come on there was 3 times that i laughed the prune joke the hosts were good @whats with only cbs or was showtime hbo @fox just getting awards ok they were boring as piant dry ok when that happen i channel surf @hope i dont miss anything
BRING BACK CONAN AS HOST BEST EVER
Quit televising them. I think it’s obvious no one really cares about another out of touch awards show.