Forget Honor; He Wanted That Emmy

With all due respect to 96.3% of the Greater Los Angeles population, I have just one request for every actor in town: Please stop lying. I never again want to hear any of you tell an “Entertainment Tonight” reporter, “It’s an honor just to be nominated” on your way into an awards show.

I now know that anyone who says this is simply not telling the truth.

You see, I was an Emmy nominee thanks to my days as a part of the production team behind the now-defunct “Martin Short Show.” And as I sat in Radio City Music Hall last Friday watching a pair of anonymously attractive actors ripping open the envelope for our best daytime talk show category, I realized that this whole honor-to-be-nominated thing ranks right up there on the all-time greatest lies list with “The check is in the mail,” “This will only hurt a little bit” and “ ‘Battlefield Earth’ as a movie? It’ll sell through the roof!”

Until that moment, I thought of my nomination as a happy accident. I never thought I’d be here, let alone take this whole thing seriously.

Less than a year ago, I’d started work as a segment producer on “The Martin Short Show” after spending the previous decade working as a Los Angeles-based correspondent for People magazine. That job was certainly entertaining, but once I realized that I knew more about the “Friends” cast’s sex lives than even they did, it was time to find something new to do. Instead of covering the world of television, I decided to join it.

I figured I knew exactly what to expect when I took the job. After all, I’d seen every episode of HBO’s “The Larry Sanders Show,” a sitcom with a vicious edge that looked behind the scenes of a talk show.

However, that series had about as much to do with my real-life talk-show experience as “Monday Nitro” has to do with Greco-Roman wrestling. As opposed to the fictional Sanders, Martin Short turned out to be a boss who was always funny, always friendly and, to the best of my knowledge, never asked anyone if his butt was too big.

Even though our show was on at night in Los Angeles, it was syndicated primarily as a daytime program elsewhere around the country. Its mix of talk and comedy was unlike anything else on the air, and this uniqueness partially explains why we struggled in the ratings right from the start. And that struggle is why it didn’t come as much of a shock when we found out this spring that the series was not being renewed.

*

A few days after getting the word, my phone rang bright and early one morning. It was one of the show’s writers, calling to congratulate me on my Emmy nomination. I pretended to be excited, thinking more about the irony of a show that has just been axed being selected as one of five nominees for best daytime talk show.

It’s nice to be wanted, but a steady gig is even better. At first, I promised myself I wouldn’t get caught up in nomination mania. This town doles out awards with the same frequency that Starbucks adds stores, so getting an Emmy nod wasn’t entirely unique. Nonetheless, I called the psychic who had predicted I’d get the “Martin Short” job to see if he thought we’d win. Sadly, he guessed the odds were 90-10 against us.

Undeterred, I began planning my outfit for the ceremony. I know someone who knows someone who works for a major designer and thought that company might lend me a suit, just as it would for the stars who attend these events. Five unreturned phone calls later, I realized I was not quite important enough for this designer and would have to find a tux on my own. (I won’t name names, but let’s just say it’s a place that would cost me an arm-ani and a leg if I were to buy a suit there.)

Things didn’t get any more dignified when I got to the pre-awards dinner last Friday. As I walked through the lobby, an over-eager Regis and Kathie Lee fan body-checked me out of the way to take a snapshot of the duo’s producer, who had arrived just ahead of me. Then, I arrived to find our dinner table so far in the back that we were literally in a different room. It was childhood Thanksgivings all over again, stuck at the kids’ table. They might as well have put crayons out for us.

“This is the difference between cancellation and a pickup,” said our executive producer and mentor for the evening, the legendary Bernie Brillstein, as he looked at our table number. “About 157 tables.”

*

Bernie is one of the most entertaining guys in show business, and his humor kept us from dwelling on our location, but it was obvious that the glamour of our nomination was over when one of my fellow segment producers asked for a cup of decaf. The waiter pointed to the crowd milling around in the big ballroom in front of us and explained, “It’s going to be a while. See all those other people out there?”

Actually, the seating arrangement made sense to me. Our show was always out of place on daytime television. And I felt completely out of place in this ballroom. Soap operas are the lifeblood of daytime, and we were surrounded by dozens of impossibly attractive soap stars, none of whom I even slightly recognized.

It was high school all over again. They were the athletes, cheerleaders and student body presidents. I was equipment manager for the chess club.

Dinner was followed by a long procession over to Radio City, a line that seemed to take a day and a half to get through because the press and paparazzi were on the other side of the red carpet, screaming for quotes and photo ops.

It seemed like a lifetime ago that I was on their side, shouting out the first names of celebrities I’d never met as if we were ex-college roommates who had just run into each other. This technique is supposed to lure famous people over to answer such penetrating questions as “Who are you wearing?” and “Are you excited?”

As we got closer to the entrance, we encountered lines of fans eager to take snapshots of anybody who looked remotely famous. Realizing I’d never have another opportunity like this, I started waving at them. One woman, Instamatic at the ready, actually waved back. Or, at least I thought she waved, until I looked behind me and saw yet another handsome actor right behind me. As it turns out, she was motioning for me to get out of the way.

As if these bad omens weren’t enough, we took our seats just in time to see a clip of the year’s daytime TV highlights. “The Martin Short Show” popped up twice, for a total of about two seconds. Meanwhile, every time a soap actor was introduced as a presenter or nominee, deafening applause thundered through the cavernous hall. When our show was announced as a nominee, it was so quiet I swear I heard my mom cheering all the way back in Seattle.

All signs pointed to our losing. Still, something strange happens to you in those final moments before the winner is revealed. You disregard the bad ratings, the horrible seating at dinner, the lack of applause. You forget that a week later, it will be hard to find anyone who could recall who won any of the evening’s prizes.

You start practicing your acceptance speech, blanking on the names of the little people who made it all possible. Instead, you remember every Oscar telecast you’ve ever seen and how happy the people giving acceptance speeches seem to be.

*

And then . . . you hear somebody else’s name being read and you politely offer about a second and a half of applause before falling into a dark silence.

We heard the name of perennial victor Rosie O’Donnell in both the best host and best show categories, and my time as a potential Emmy winner was over.

Our evening finished, we slipped out the front door and saw an empty street. All of the screaming fans and shouting paparazzi had moved on to prepare for whatever the next award show will be. In fact, the only people we saw were O’Donnell and her producing team heading down the street, looking surprisingly sedate.

Perhaps this was a sign. Maybe winning an Emmy doesn’t make you a happier or better person. Life is about being competent, not about competition. I’ll ponder that, right after I get this column off to the Pulitzer people.