It’s Larry’s, er, Garry’s Show

Some people won some Emmy Awards Sunday night, but I forgot who and what for.

I was too busy enjoying the show-within-a-show, starring Garry Shandling. The comedian skewered show business to great effect in his long-running comedy series “The Larry Sanders Show” on HBO. That show was critically acclaimed and low-rated, and it never won the Emmy as the big kahuna of comedy. But Sunday night, Shandling thrived in a reprised, pseudo-Sanders role, vamping in his inimical, self-flagellating fashion in backstage sketches with Calista Flockhart, Sarah Jessica Parker and David Duchovny, among others.

Shandling’s writers thrived in other ways too. On a night when viewers are asked to swallow the fiction that television is an artistically pure and professionally generous business, they delivered a montage showing us what’s really out there--a bracingly honest overview of the tabloid talk shows, home-shopping channels and 24-hour sports networks that not only constitute the true viewing experience in the year 2000 but suggest how easily we might survive without the beautiful people gathered to honor themselves in the Shrine Auditorium.

It was a statement so provocative it bordered on politics.

To that end, some speculated that this year’s broadcast would be rife with political grandstanding, given that the Screen Actors Guild/American Federation of Television and Radio Artists commercial strike is in its fifth month and Martin Sheen was in the building.

But alas, no one mentioned the people pitching the products we buy, just as no one welcomed back Robert Downey Jr. into the bosom of show business--the first person, to my knowledge, to go from a penitentiary to the cast of Fox’s “Ally McBeal.”

Linwood Boomer, accepting a writing Emmy for “Malcolm in the Middle,” did say: “I left my yellow ribbon at home, but I’m totally with you guys. Don’t give up.” At that moment, most everyone in America probably assumed Boomer was referring to the six people left in CBS’ “Big Brother” house.

But, no, he was talking about the still-simmering strike, which--in case you haven’t heard--is ostensibly about commercial actors wrestling with big companies over the residual payments for the commercials in which they star.

The Emmys, by contrast, are all about how creatively an actress can display her cleavage. This year’s candidates for “best-dressed breasts” included Megan Mullally, Geena Davis, Patricia Heaton, and Sela Ward, who consulted hard with the makers of all four Batman movies before picking out a black leather number that nicely distanced herself from the “cable-knit sweater goddess” outfits she wears weekly on ABC’s “Once and Again.”

Another fashion maven, Cher, looked stricken when she didn’t win best performance in a variety or music program, losing out to someone who looks even less like a man than she does, British transvestite comedian Eddie Izzard.

This year’s obligatory standing ovations went to Jack Lemmon and Michael J. Fox. Lemmon won for his performance in cultist Oprah Winfrey’s production of “Tuesdays With Morrie,” and Fox, who has Parkinson’s disease, won for his lead role in his final season on “Spin City.”

People applauded, but they didn’t stand for “Will & Grace.” The show was voted best comedy, which no doubt will spawn more, weaker attempts at sitcoms featuring gay men and straight women, or straight men and gay women, or straight cats and gay dogs. In winning, “Will & Grace” beat out the poor show whose name nobody can get right: It’s “Everybody Loves Raymond,” not “Everyone Loves Raymond.”

With new rules that opened up the process to a larger percentage of the TV academy’s members, viewers were treated to new faces over repeat winners. This is supposed to excite us, but beyond bragging rights for studios and networks, what does an Emmy mean, finally?

This year, the biggest suspense--and the most chest-thumping--centered on the battle between two heavyweight dramas, “The West Wing” and “The Sopranos.”

Hmm, let’s see. “The West Wing,” which is haughty and slick and likes to lecture, versus “The Sopranos,” which is ethnic and dark and airs on a pay cable network.

But there was, it turns out, one twist in the end. James Gandolfini, the mobster, beat out Sheen, the president, in the lead dramatic actor category. “I think the academy has an affinity for slightly overweight, bald men,” Gandolfini said, acknowledging an Emmy-bias that helped “NYPD Blue’s” Dennis Franz win this award four times in the past.

Still, it was mostly “The West Wing’s” night. Creator/executive producer Aaron Sorkin, supporting actor Richard Schiff, supporting actress Allison Janney and director Thomas Schlamme all won statuettes.

“I read for the part of vice president,” Shandling said of Schlamme, after the director accepted his award. “They said, ‘Too Jewish.’ ”

Top Honors

COMEDY

SERIES “Will & Grace”

NBC

ACTOR Michael J. Fox

“Spin City,” ABC

ACTRESS Patricia Heaton

“Everybody Loves Raymond,” CBS

DRAMA

SERIES “The West Wing”

NBC

ACTOR James Gandolfini

“The Sopranos,” HBO

ACTRESS Sela Ward

“Once and Again,” ABC

TV MOVIE

“Tuesdays With Morrie”

ABC

ACTOR Jack Lemmon

“Tuesdays With Morrie,” ABC

ACTRESS Halle Berry

“Introducing Dorothy Dandridge,” HBO

SOUND BITES

“Dave, if you’re watching at home, it looks like the fake heart surgery paid off!”

Rob Burnett

accepting the Emmy for best variety, music or comedy series on behalf of “Late Show With David Letterman”

***

“[ABC] wanted to call this, ‘Who Wants to Win an Emmy’ ”

Garry Shandling

joking that the network wants to make everything a game show

***

“Wherever Dorothy Dandridge is now, I know she is standing tall and proud--and smiling.”

Halle Berry

accepting the award for best actress in a miniseries or movie

***

“I just want to thank God for thinking me up.”

Patricia Heaton

winning for her acting on “Everybody Loves Raymond”

***

“I read for the part of vice president. They said, ‘Too Jewish.’ ”

Garry Shandling

talking about “The West Wing”

***

“I learned more from you in the four weeks we worked together than in the rest of my career combined.”

Hank Azaria

speaking to Jack Lemmon, his co-star in “Tuesdays With Morrie”

***

“There goes my acting career.”

Charles S. Dutton

accepting the Emmy for directing “The Corner”

***

“No one ever talks about what [Joan Rivers] is wearing. She looks like a hooker with a microphone!”

Garry Shandling

in his opening monologue

BOX SCORE

TOP SHOWS AWARDS

“The West Wing” 9

“Introducing Dorothy Dandridge” 5

“Tuesdays With Morrie” 4

“Will & Grace” 3

“The Corner” 3

“RKO 281” 3

“The X-Files” 3

“Walking With Dinosaurs” 3

Complete list of winners, F13

MORE EMMYS

* “The West Wing” won big in the voting. Now, how might it affect another vote in November? F13

* This year’s fashions are brought to fans in living color. F14

* Winners’ list, F13