Yep, it's a few minutes 'til midnight, and I've just gotten back from the 2006 Creative Arts Emmys with a buzz that is half the heavy-duty Cosmopolitan from the vodka bar and half the espresso I had when I was waiting for valet parking.
Penn and Teller were the nominal "hosts" and when they were on (which wasn't often) they were as amusing as they always are. I met Penn back when I was working on "Lois & Clark" and he's always been in-your-face fun. The best "presenters" for me were the married Jane Kaczmarek and Bradley Whitford, both coming off seven-year-runs of hit shows, and going on to new shows. Just using bemused facial expressions, Bradley Whitford brought comedy to their bit.
If you want to read the trades, here's what the "Hollywood Reporter" had to say about the evening. You'll read about how "Elizabeth" on HBO won the most awards even though almost nobody in regular America saw it, how "Baghdad ER" won plenty of awards because it was both hard-to-watch and important-to-watch, and how Cloris Leachman won as "guest actress in a comedy series" again making the 80-year-old's run to the stage the closest thing to a tradition the Emmy has.
It was a long night... a nearly four-hour awards show with no commercial breaks... sleep calls... at least I won't have to sit anymore...
