Emmycast Down and Dirty--and Funny

You laughed. But at least as often, you groaned.

It took five years. But finally, after all those false starts, after hanging in there and refusing to give up, after suffering abuse from its critics and getting clobbered in the ratings, Fox finally got much of the annual Emmy Awards telecast just the way it wanted it.

Raunchy.

Think of Sunday night as the night they emptied out the Improv, the night the blue material hit the fan, the night the Emmys at once soared and sank into the mud. What a way to toast the best.

The comedy theme for television’s 43rd Emmy program was somehow appropriate, given prime time’s heavy tilt toward half-hour comedies. Unburdened by production numbers, and hosted by clever comics Dennis Miller and Jerry Seinfeld along with Jamie Lee Curtis, executive producer Steve Sohmer’s often tasteless telecast really cut lose with the funnies.

And the dirt, unfortunately. Miller was on the mark when he called 5-year-old Fox “the network whose parents are out of town.”

Presenters Jane Seymour and John Goodman scored the evening’s first double-entendre when referring to 43 years of Emmy winners.

Seymour: “If you laid every one of them end to end. . . .”

Goodman: “. . . you’d be exhausted.”

It was presenter Gilbert Gottfried’s monologue on masturbation--great for a club, appalling for a prime-time awards show--that was so tasteless that Fox deleted it from its taped Pacific time zone feed of the show. In other times zones, where the show was broadcast live, Gottfried’s monologue was a sneak attack on unsuspecting Americans who might have been watching this with their families. Gottfried, whom Fox officials said worked without a script, ended with a double-entendre about his penis.

It was especially ill-timed and out of sync with what immediately followed, a sentimental tribute to the late Michael Landon.

Later on in the version of the telecast shown in other parts of the country, Keenen Ivory Wayans, co-star and executive producer of Fox’s frequently off-color “In Living Color,” thanked the network censors working the Emmycast. “After hearing Gilbert Gottfried do five minutes on masturbation,” he said, “we’re getting ready to go buck wild on ‘In Living Color.’ ” Count on it.

There was more.

When giddy Kirstie Alley, after getting the Emmy for best lead comedy actress, thanked her husband for “giving me the big one for the last eight years,” her reference became a running joke the rest of the telecast. “The big one? It could be a balloon payment,” cracked Seinfeld.

Poor Sam Kinison. Appearing as one of the final presenters, the usually racy comic seemed like Pinky Lee compared to others on the show.

Some of this was funny, all right, but the flippancy about sex--and a clip of the flaming gay characters from “In Loving Color”--distinctly clashed with the somber message of the red ribbons that Emmycast participants wore in support of AIDS research.

Actually, the funniest comedy of the evening surfaced in clips of classic sitcoms that were used to lead into commercial breaks. It was somehow ironic that Fox would run so many promos for “The Simpsons,” moreover, given that television academy rules required prime time’s funniest and most creative comedy be judged solely as an animation program and pick up its Emmy in a Saturday ceremony that was untelevised.

Equally unjust was the decision to relegate “The Civil War”--Ken Burns’ brilliant documentary that pumped PBS full of adrenaline--to the same Saturday ceremony. It received two Emmys, for best information series and outstanding writing in an informational program.

Among the most heartfelt and emotional acceptances, meanwhile, was best drama actress winner Patricia Wettig’s speech thanking the viewers for supporting ABC’s canceled “thirtysomething,” on which she played cancer patient Nancy Weston.

Wettig: “She lived really close to my heart.” As did her series to the hearts of its fans.