Better Than Watching TV All Night

The Scene: Sunday’s celebrations after the Emmys. The TV elite could limo-surf between the Governors Ball at the Pasadena Civic, the “Entertainment Tonight” bash at Twin Palms, HBO’s party on the New York street at Warner Bros. lot and Fox TV’s affair at Chasen’s. “For the television industry, this is an enormously important day,” said a local savant. “For the rest of Hollywood it’s a yawn.”

The Experience: NBC’s Warren Littlefield said going to the Emmys “is like another day at the office where once again I have no control over what’s going on.”

Who Was There: The Ball’s “A” table had Bruce Willis and Demi Moore seated beside Ellen DeGeneres and Anne Heche, (Academy brass including Rich Frank, Meryl Marshall and producer Don Mischer were nearby); HBO headliners were Bette Midler, Christopher Reeve, Garry Shandling, Arianna Huffington and Glenn Close; “ET” hosted 800 guests including Dennis Franz and Kelsey Grammer; Fox had 700 including Gillian Anderson, Kim Delaney and Christine Lahti.

Quoted: Winner Tracey Ullman at the Warners lot--”You sit there thinking ‘How can I get out of here early if I don’t win?’ And what are you going to say to the kids. You try explaining to a 5-year-old why Mommy didn’t win.”

Observed: Winners eyeing the paper glued to their statuette’s base stating, in hard-core legalese, that the award they’re holding is actually the property of the TV Academy and they better not sell it or they’re in big trouble. This note was described by one network exec as the “you-can’t-unload-this-at-the-Rose-Bowl-Swap-Meet warning tag.”