Emmys: Accentuate the Positive

Sunday’s telecast of the 48th nighttime Emmy Awards on ABC will feature a star-studded tribute to the V-chip, a glittery production number praising the government call for quotas on children’s programming and a montage of the most violent TV moments from the last 50 years.

Just kidding.

In reality, producers promise that the ceremony will be a straightforward celebration of television’s last 50 years, tied to the 50th anniversary of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Though the industry has come in for more than its share of criticism from President Clinton, special-interest groups, legislators and critics during the last few years, the emphasis at this year’s awards event will be on the positive achievements of television.

Said Dick Clark, executive producer of the awards telecast: “This show will be the answer to the criticism that television receives. This will show that we do have valid material that gets on the air. There is some stuff we do that we’re not proud of, but there is plenty we are proud of. We should not be the whipping boy of politicians.”

“Television is in a great place right now,” said Rich Frank, president of the television academy. “It’s so easy to take shots at it because so much is produced. We do make mistakes. But there is so much television that is good, and that’s what we’re going to focus on.”

Included in the three-hour broadcast from the Pasadena Civic Auditorium will be nostalgic segments on television theme songs, great moments in television fiction and a look at television families ranging from the Nelsons of “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet” to the Bundys of “Married . . . With Children.”

Clark, who has produced many other awards shows, said he has been overwhelmed by the amount of material his staff is trying to whittle down to fit into a three-hour time frame.

“This is the most difficult awards show we’ve ever tackled,” he said. “It’s really breaking my heart that we don’t have 19 hours to do this.”

Consequently, between the presenting of the awards and the clips, there will not be time to add more glitz to the show. No production numbers. No dancers. No roving celebrities doing interviews in the parking lot. No embarrassing impromptu interviews in the audience. And, he hopes, no lengthy acceptance speeches.

“Time is really our enemy with this show,” he said. “I have individually talked to everyone who is going to be on the show, and I will plead with them again to stick to the time limits. We would love to have a production number, but when you’re looking at the 50th anniversary of the academy, there is just no time.”

Another element that Clark hopes will be absent from the ceremony is controversy.

Even though it’s an election year, he doesn’t foresee presenters or award winners using the spotlight to make political statements. The 1992 Emmys were distinguished by several performers blasting Vice President Dan Quayle for criticizing the fictional Murphy Brown for having a baby out of wedlock, saying it signified a lack of “family values.”

“I really don’t anticipate that anything like that is going to happen,” Clark said. “This is really about celebrating television.”

Frank echoed his sentiment.

“We’ve had to deal with the government looking into television, then the whole issue of requiring three hours of children’s programming and many other issues,” Frank said. “Because of all the things we’ve had to deal with, it got together television people who had never talked before. So the industry is stronger now than ever. TV is hot again. No one has turned down an invitation to the show. And we’ve never had such a backlog of tickets.”

To further zero in on the theme of the positive aspects of television, the show will feature the introduction of the President’s Award, to be given to a program that has addressed an issue in a positive way, Frank said. Candice Bergen, whose father, Edgar Bergen, was the first president of the academy, will present the award.

Nominees for the President’s Award are NBC’s “ER,” A&E;’s series “Biography” and three documentaries: HBO’s “The Celluloid Closet,” TBS’ “Survivors of the Holocaust” and AMC’s “Blacklist: Hollywood on Trial.”

Paul Reiser will host the ceremonies, with assistance from Michael J. Fox and Oprah Winfrey. Presenters include Carol Burnett, Milton Berle, Jay Leno, Garry Shandling, Mira Sorvino and Marlo Thomas.

Among the broadcast’s more unusual segments will be a look at how doors have played an important part in television history. “You can’t have a TV series without a door. Everything happens because of the door,” Clark said.

Among the fictional moments that will be honored will be the capture of the one-armed man on “The Fugitive,” the “Who Shot J.R.?” episode of “Dallas” and the birth of the Ricardo baby on “I Love Lucy.”

The show will also feature a look at how television has handled sex, from “Leave It to Beaver” to “Married . . . With Children.”

* The tape-delayed telecast of the Emmy Awards begins Sunday at 8 p.m., preceded by a half-hour show covering celebrity arrivals at 7:30 p.m. on KABC-TV Channel 7. Live coverage of the arrivals will air 3-5 p.m. on cable’s E! channel.