Emmy Snub of ‘Sopranos’ Is a Crime

I used to say: “Buongiorno, Emmys!” Now I say: “They have to be kidding!”

The heavily promoted re-release of Roberto Benigni’s Oscar-winning “Life Is Beautiful” dubbed in English has been bad enough--a dollar-milking move pandering to those poor babies in the United States who can’t tolerate subtitles and prefer their Italians abroad to speak Americanese.

But now this: pretty much an Emmy snub of another kind of Italian story.

That would be “The Sopranos,” HBO’s great, great series about a conflicted Italian American mobster and his families on the home and crime fronts. In a boggling choice, the drama series Emmy went instead to ABC’s “The Practice.”

Shows with the most nominations usually don’t fare well, and this year was no exception. The HBO series’ 16 nominations yielded just four wins, including one each for casting and editing that were given out in an untelevised ceremony Aug. 28.

All of that notwithstanding, Sunday night’s program on Fox not only proceeded crisply but also, when it came to comedy, was the best-written Emmy telecast in years. Co-hosts Jenna Elfman and David Hyde Pierce were pleasant enough and didn’t get in the way. Nor did they squander their amusing opening bit in which they defined some of this year’s nominees through interpretive dance.

Get serious! Thankfully, they didn’t.

Even funnier:

* A crystal-ball look at the future of Keri Russell and her “Felicity” series as “NYPD Blue,” “The X-Files” and “ER.”

* A sketch with Jon Stewart satirizing TV’s obsession with youth both in front of and behind the cameras making programming decisions.

* A joint appearance by Emmy accountants and brawny WWF wrestlers.

* Hyde Pierce and Regis Philbin having fun with the latter’s recent hit summer series, “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.”

Presenter Garry Shandling was a howl, too, ironically preceding the night’s biggest clunker. That was comedy writing winner Jay Kogen of “Frasier,” who spewed one lame joke after another. At one point Fox pulled the plug on his audio when he started to give the phone number of the office where he said his mother was a Realtor.

Said a giddy Kogen: “Writers don’t get a chance to talk.” His acceptance speech proved why.

Meanwhile, the Emmys may have set a record for no-shows in a single category when four of six actresses nominated for their supporting work in a movie or miniseries--including winner Anne Bancroft of “Deep in My Heart”--failed to appear.

The night’s least-deserving winner was that good actor Stanley Tucci, who appeared embarrassed himself that his starring work in HBO’s crummy “Winchell” was deemed better than Ian Holm’s magnificent deranged monarch in “King Lear” on PBS. To say nothing of nominee Don Cheadle’s fine performance in HBO’s “A Lesson Before Dying.”

Back to “The Sopranos,” whose creator, David Chase, won a writing Emmy with James Manos Jr. for an episode in which James Gandolfini’s Tony Soprano wound up whacking someone during a trip with Tony’s 18-year-old daughter to check out posh college campuses. And whose Edie Falco received an Emmy for her lead role as Tony’s wife.

Well deserved, but not enough, with both Gandolfini’s remarkable characterization of Tony and Nancy Marchand’s of the gangster’s Machiavellian mother not getting the Emmy rewards they deserved.

Not that the other winners were necessarily palookas. Far from it. But this was a year in which nothing on TV matched “The Sopranos.” Succeeding as both high art and popular entertainment, it deglamorized organized crime and reduced the operatic dignity given the Mafia in those “Godfather” films and a multitude of cheap clones. The best series on television deserved the highest award television can give it.