THE 46TH ANNUAL EMMY AWARDS : THE SHOW: A Critic’s View : Big Wins for ‘Fences’ Leave ‘NYPD’ Blue : Like any Emmys telecast, the show’s uneven, but at least it’s more lovable than lamentable.

There are so many awards telecasts that they congeal in your mind. Sunday night was no exception.

Statuettes, acceptances, self-congratulations, jokes, yadda yadda yadda. You knew it wasn’t the Oscars, the Tonys or the Grammys, though, when the off-camera announcer dramatically proclaimed:

“Ladies and gentlemen, Heather Locklear!”

And when the show’s 1993-94 highlight reel included that great kidder Bobcat Goldthwait torching part of Jay Leno’s set.

And a sweet tribute to actress Jessica Tandy, who had died earlier that day, was immediately followed by a Coke commercial featuring a swimming elephant.

Yes, it was the Emmys, as always a telecast as uneven as the medium that it celebrates, as always giving “this thing called television”--as TV academy president Rich Frank described it--a chance to pat itself on the back once more. It was a mocking Jerry Seinfeld who perfectly captured the tone of all awards programs, calling the Emmys “a chance to say congratulations to us on another year’s job well done.”

At least most of the self-love was relatively unpretentious. And for the second consecutive year, in fact, the ABC telecast from the Pasadena Civic Auditorium was much more lovable than lamentable, three generally rewarding hours whose success was due largely to executive producer Don Mischer and his staff.

In contrast to past Emmys telecasts, there was no over-staging of production numbers, nothing to detract from Bette Midler’s swell form in belting out her signature song from “Gypsy,” nothing to overwhelm the refreshing light humor of Jason Alexander’s parody of series theme songs from “All in the Family” to “The Brady Bunch.”

Of the two co-hosts, “Home Improvement” star Patricia Richardson was all right, but clearly this wasn’t her thing. “Ellen” star Ellen DeGeneres, on the other hand, was fresh and funny behind her mobile mike, at one point surfacing in the ABC control room and directing camera shots, another time showing up in the Emmys press room as winner Michael Richards of “Seinfeld” was being interviewed.

Then, mocking public television pledge drives, she implored viewers who wanted to keep the Emmys going to “call the number on the screen, and please, please give generously.” Unlike some stand-up comics who appear on awards shows, moreover, DeGeneres knew not only when to joke, but also when to shut up and emcee.

There were other bits of humor in the telecast. Gathering herself for her close-up, Emmy winner Faye Dunaway declared to America: “I’m here to tell you: This town has a heart.” If that wasn’t funny enough, Emmy winner David Letterman topped it a little later by asking: “Is she talking about Hollywood, or is she talking about Pasadena?”

Some of the evening’s jokes were better unsaid, however. That included envelope-opening Jay Leno hoping “O.J.’s knife” wouldn’t fall out. And another presenter, Garry Shandling, cracked a joke about a joke about Tom and Roseanne that was so raunchy. . . .

How raunchy?

So raunchy that Roseanne herself laughed.

Among the other failures was a segment on TV’s Invasion of Stand-Up Comics. It didn’t begin to convey the multitudes heading their own sitcoms, to say nothing of their impact on contemporary TV comedy. And speaking of misfires, it was Jeff Greenfield, one of the brightest lights of ABC News, of all people, who was just boggling in his role as the telecast’s official sage and Ethical Conscience of Television, decrying the medium’s excess of tabloid-style material.

“How many of those pictures are we going to splash across the screen before we begin to demean the audience and cheapen this remarkable medium?” he asked. Greenfield didn’t seem to know himself.

He did know how to take a time cue, though, and he left the stage, leaving us to wonder why he’d been deployed in the first place and whether his words were an indication of ABC’s intent to turn down the heat on the O.J. story and other sensational crimes.

We didn’t have to contemplate long, for at a subsequent commercial break, there was Diane Sawyer promoting her next interview on ABC’s “PrimeTime Live”:

“For the first time, Nicole Brown Simpson’s family speaks out!”

I’m here to tell you: This network has a heart.