Live Emmy Blog

7:55: OK, I've got a bottle of bubbly on ice, so I can chug... I mean, make a heartfelt toast every time Ugly Betty and/or The Office win, and I've got three pairs of ratty sneakers to throw at the TV every time they don't. So I guess I'm as ready as I'll ever be to ringlead my first-ever live Emmy blog. Hey, I just realized that makes me a virgin! Be gentle with me, will ya, folks? 7:58: Yikes. Just read the preshow red-carpet coverage. Funny stuff. Now I'm nervous. 8:00: A song and dance from Family Guy's Brian and Stewie Griffin. Never got that show. Must be "thrilling" in the auditorium. Yep, look at Jeremy Piven. He's bored already. 8:01: Charlie Sheen and the tubby kid from Two and a Half Men liked being name-checked in the song. Some people are so easy to please. 8:02: T.R. Knight looks irritated by a lyric about Isaiah Washington replacing Kramer on Seinfeld. 8:03: OK, that's over. Things are looking up. Oh, I spoke too soon. It's Ryan Seacrest. Please no jokes. 8:04: OK, maybe he can tell a joke. Calling it "The Emmys - The Results Show" was funny. 8:04:30: Seacrest's special qualification: "Would any [of the past hosts] have showed up four hours early [to work the red carpet]?"
8:05: Wow, feel the unsexual tension when Seacrest says hey in his butchest voice to ex-"girlfriend" Teri Hatcher in the audience. 8:07: Nice to see Kristen Bell in the front row. Too bad it isn't for Veronica Mars. 8:07:30: Seacrest says his 18th-b-day gift to Hayden Panettiere is "seating her as far away as possible from Jeremy Piven." Heh heh. 8:08: Presenter Ray Romano let his hair grow out. Hippie. 8:09: Oopsie. Dead air. We miss the joke about Patricia Heaton hooking up with Frasier. 8:10: Romano jokes that his wife is dying for him to go back to work. She even suggests that he go on Flavor of Love. "'You like him,'" he says she tells him. 8:10: Romano's doing a whole monologue. Why isn't he hosting? He can do a whole funny monologue. 8:11: He's gotta be kidding. He loved The Sopranos finale? 8:11:30: Yes, he's kidding. That's the way sex ends for his wife, he says. The lights go out and she says, "It's over?" 8:12: Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. I'm rooting for Doogie Howser. 8:12:30: Pivert wins. Blah. I know it's unhip not to love Entourage, but I don't. 8:13: Aw, nice. JP gives props to the writer who pens all their ad-libbed stuff on the HBO hit. The stubble really works on him. 8:14: America Ferrera and Vanessa Williams - yay! Vanessa looks red-hot in green. America... looks a little more like she's prom-bound. But I'm no Seacrest. What do I know of fashion? 8:15: Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. Go, Masi Oka! C'mon, he's the year's breakout star, right? 8:15:30: Terry O'Quinn. Well, I can't say he doesn't deserve it. 8:16: Holy crap! I just saw the bottom of Vanessa's dress! She's wearing Muppet! Egad! 8:16:30: O'Quinn makes a crack about wanting to collect the kinda paycheck that the Desperate Housewives do. He recovers from it sweetly enough, but golly, maybe not the ideal time to bitch that you don't get paid enough. He can always melt down his award. - Written by Ben Katner