A Perfectionist Works the Emmys

“Special,” at least in television parlance, is said to be derived from “spectacular”--the term Sylvester “Pat” Weaver, NBC’s legendary programming czar of the 1950s, coined for his network’s star-studded showcases.

Though Weaver has been called a visionary, it’s hard to imagine he could have foreseen how “special” would be used today, describing Fox’s penchant for showing unfortunate souls “caught on tape” being trampled by wildebeest, or better yet, having some moron intentionally risk killing himself on the air--live!--by crashing a plane or trying to jump the state of Nevada on a motorcycle.

It’s somewhat reassuring, then, to know there are those who still embrace “special” in the old-fashioned sense of the word. Dropped, fumbled and kicked around during the bottom-line-oriented 1990s, the baton has been picked up by producer Don Mischer.

Mischer is the producer of this Sunday’s nighttime Emmy Awards, something he has done four of the last five years. The lapse occurred in 1996, when Mischer was laboring on the opening and closing ceremonies of the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, which, in an age of hype, actually lived up to the “spectacular” designation.

Mischer is currently bidding to reprise that task for Salt Lake City’s Winter Games in 2002, even as he looks ahead to a dizzying array of events this year. Beyond the Emmys (airing on Fox), they include acting as one of five producers on NetAid, an international anti-poverty benefit combining TV, radio and the Internet planned for next month; the Kennedy Center Honors, which he will again produce with George Stevens Jr. in December; and Barbra Streisand’s sing-in-the-millennium New Year’s Eve concert at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

In his office preparing for the Emmys--glancing periodically at colored note cards tacked to a board that plan every beat of the show--Mischer conceded the kind of specials he enjoys are often at odds with what appears to be filling prime time.

“It’s hard to compare the Kennedy Center Honors with ‘Stunts Gone Bad,’ ” he said.

Yet the producer also acknowledged the “concept specials” that once dotted the airwaves--putting two stars together, coming up with a theme and having a rollicking, singing, dancing old time--”simply don’t work anymore” from a ratings standpoint.

CBS is planning music-themed specials later this year featuring Ricky Martin, Celine Dion and Shania Twain, but for the most part, variety and music specials on the major networks are a thing of the past. And while HBO runs concerts--recently setting fashion trends back a decade or so with Cher--a pay channel can also afford to reach a smaller audience.

Programs such as the Kennedy Center Honors have thus become increasingly rare. Mischer sees this as being driven largely by a reluctance on the part of networks to risk sacrificing a night ratings-wise, even in the pursuit of a slightly more elevated goal.

“As recently as 10 or 12 years ago, there was still more of a sense of conscience, I think, among broadcasters, especially networks, to air a show that seemed to be right to put on the air, that would reflect well on them,” without regard to ratings, Mischer said. “It doesn’t happen much anymore.”

Award shows, in fact, have become the ratings-grabbing alternative to variety specials, and they have proliferated like rabbits. Not only have networks moved awards that weren’t previously televised onto the air, but they keep creating new made-for-TV affairs such as the Blockbuster Entertainment, TV Guide and Source Hip-Hop awards, in the process threatening to exhaust the world’s supply of cheap metals.

For all the awards out there, producing the Emmys still entails a novel sort of juggling act--balancing various interests and egos that mean virtually nothing to the viewer at home, such as ensuring a level of parity in the number of stars representing each network.

“You are serving many masters,” Mischer said. “You are serving the TV academy and their needs. The network always wants to take you in a different direction. If the network had it their way--and I don’t care which network it is--you would not be presenting four writing awards and four directing awards on the Emmys. That’s eight [out of 27 televised] awards, given to people that the audience at home really doesn’t know much about or care much about.”

The producer struggles with other arbitrary requirements, among them the 40-second cap placed on acceptance speeches. Mischer calls the time limit “ludicrous” but ultimately necessary: As it is, with advertising and promotion on the rise, the show has only 20 minutes for material that isn’t directly tied to presenting an award.

Moreover, unlike the Oscars--which can seemingly run three days if they need to--a priority is placed on ending the Emmys by 11 p.m. so the ceremony doesn’t spill over into local news time. Mischer attributes that mostly to network affiliates, which generate the most revenue from their news and “almost see prime time as the filler between their newscasts.”

As a result, Mischer said, “On Emmy night, I sit here with all kinds of planned cuts, and we just keep adjusting the show, hoping to come out [on time].”

This hardly sounds like the way television should treat its own premiere showcase, and Mischer fully recognizes the Emmys have a tradition of leaving everybody griping about something.

“These are kind of no-win situations for producers,” he noted. “As [Oscars producer] Gil Cates has often said, ‘You’re at the mercy of the award show gods,’ and the things that make or break the show are things you cannot really produce. If Camryn Manheim walks up there and says, ‘This is for fat girls,’ that’s something we couldn’t produce, but that’s a great moment. . . . If someone pulls out a [thank you] list and reads from it, that’s not.”

Something of a perfectionist, Mischer said he seldom finishes one of his projects feeling completely satisfied, tending to focus rather on what went wrong. Still, when the lights go down and the camera comes on Sunday, he will endeavor for a few hours to make television “special” again, in the way Pat Weaver meant it.

“I love television, and there’s a tremendous amount of mediocrity on television,” Mischer said, betraying a gift for understatement. “On Emmy night, we get to look at the good stuff. When you see the best scenes from ‘NYPD Blue’ and ‘ER’ and ‘Law & Order,’ and the best comedic scenes, it’s good television. We can walk out of there proud.”

At least, until the next ghoulish Fox special comes along.

Brian Lowry’s column appears on Tuesdays. He can be reached by e-mail at brian.lowry@latimes.com.