My Night At The Emmy Celebration

Last week, I was invited to a very special Emmy celebration. No, this wasn’t an award show. No golden statuettes were handed out. This was a celebration for the Emmys. You see, our favorite television award turned sixty this year, and to celebrate this ripe old anniversary, the Academy decided to throw an event, replete with kitschy prizes and free food. Oh, and did I mention the presence of Marc Summers? It was too tempting to pass up, even if it did take place in the heart of the valley. With a camera in hand, and a fellow blogger by my side (Lisa Timmons, editor extraordinaire of A Socialite’s Life), I headed to North Hollywood for what would be one of the more colorful, hilarious, and dare I say exciting nights of the year…

The red carpet. Oh, not for my event. This is the AFI’s celebration of Warren Beatty. I happened to drive by it on the way to my far more illustrious gathering.

Driving into the parking garage, I thought the guy in front of me was Larry David. Not so D-list after all! Turns out I was wrong. It was just a guy who looked like Larry David. And not even that much. I guess I was just really, really desperate the amp up the celebrity wattage.

Upon entering The Academy, we were ushered into a VIP dinner buffet featuring — but not limited to — mixed greens, steamed carrots, Beef Bourguignon, and a veritable cornucopia of brownies and cookies. We weren’t expecting such a glorious spread; so as you can imagine, we were very, very excited. Give two bloggers free food, and our night is made. Plus, each table came with a decorative Emmy centerpiece. Um, I mean, we won Emmys. For being… uh… Outstanding Buffet Participants in a Musical or Variety Program. Here Lisa poses with hers.

And here I am with mine. I should note that we had absolutely no idea what the dress code would be. I almost showed up in trendy jeans with a trendy t-shirt. Then I thought better of it. Good thing: the VIPs were all dressed in spiffy duds. (Plus, I’m very bad at pulling off “trendy”; so that would have been bad no matter what)

Sadly, before we could partake in the brownie portion of the evening, we were escorted out of the buffet area and brought to the main theater where the show began in earnest. This retrospective was kind of funky in that it employed a game show format. I didn’t really understand how it would work except that people would be plucked from the audience to participate. Not us though. We didn’t get a chance to fill out the necessary pre-show questionnaire. (It was a very selective process).

Spicing things up were a constant onslaught of raffles to keep all of us on our toes. The man in the middle is Rich Fields, a.k.a. the voice of Price is Right. The girls flanking him are actual real life Deal or No Deal models. However, unlike Deal or No Deal, when these girls opened their briefcases, the little placard inside tended to be either upside down or, as in this picture, completely unattached to the adhesive.

With a little handiwork, the model reaffixes the prize, and we learn that some lucky person will be winning a dinner for four at… Marie Callender’s! I bet no one got THAT at Warren Beatty’s event.

Looks like this lucky lady’s gonna be having some free pie, courtesy o’ the Callender!

And now our host for the evening: the incomparable Marc Summers!

The first round of competition begins. On the right is local entertainment reporter George Pennachio, who serves as the “celebrity” player of the group. Needless to say, Lisa and I were in D-list heaven. Crossing fingers for a Marla Gibbs cameo…

This here is Gladys, an old lady/actress who may or may not have thought she was at the Oscars. (She was a little confused.) Amusingly, someone omitted the “s” in her name on Rich Field’s card; so when he called her up, he kept saying, “Gladdy? Gladdy? Is there a Gladdy?” Maybe it’s the Bourguignon speaking, but we thought it was hilarious.

Despite a strong comeback with the points, Gladdy gets eliminated first. It’s too bad. We really enjoyed watching her trying to buzz in on (and then answer) questions that were directed towards other players. George Pennachio gets cut second, making Peter (the middle dude) the winner of this round. One of the runners-up then receives quite the glamourous parting gift: “Collectibles.” I don’t remember everything this vague prize encompassed, but I seem to recall Rich Fields making mention of a novelty $2 bill and a hologram. No joke.

Okay, the funniest moment of the night. At one point, this man came on stage, and we learned that he was a voice-over guy who’d been working in Hollywood for decades. For some reason, he started telling a story about someone who had died, and just as he paused, a voice out of nowhere said, “Great. Way to bring the whole room down with DEAD people.” Huh? Was there a heckler in the audience? An ungrateful academy member? No. Turns out it was MARC SUMMERS who had been backstage with his mic still on. Wow. How gloriously embarrassing and fantastic. I thought that stuff only happened to Homer Simpson and Lt. Frank Drebin. Now we can add Marc Summers to the list. He was a good sport though. He came on stage and bowed, and honestly, I’m not sure the voice over guy even knew what was going on.

The next round of contestants. I thought my fame-dar was good, but it was nothing compared to Lisa’s. She immediately and accurately pegged Angela on the left to be none other than Karen from Step by Step. Wow. In other news, Angela was surprisingly very good at Emmy trivia while Monica (a reporter from People) put in a miserable performance. She blamed her clicker thing (via several passive-aggressive grumbles), but I have my doubts.

Random Jack Klugman appearance. Can’t front. That’s a pretty big deal. Eat your heart out, WARREN BEATTY.

And now Bryan Cranston, (Malcolm in the Middle, Breaking Bad, Dr. Tim Whatley on Seinfeld). This was getting pretty high level. Also in attendance were Kathryn Joosten from Desperate Housewives and a personal favorite of mine, Tichina Arnold from Everybody Hates Chris.

Believe it or not, this whole game show thing which had seemed so cheesy, turned out to be surprisingly exciting. We were all cheering like crazy. The championship round came down to these three vying for tickets to the Emmy Awards this September. As you can see, Diana on the right was awful.

After the festivities, guess what we found? ANOTHER FREE FOOD SPREAD!

Best night ever? Close to it.

The crowd. Somewhere in there is Tichina Arnold. I told her that I thought she deserved an Emmy nom (which is true), and that I enjoyed her work in Little Shop of Horrors. I caught her off guard with the reference, but she then told me I was cool (translation: stop stalking me) and gave me a high-five. Unfortunately, as my hand had been clutching a cold water bottle, my palm was wet and clammy. Tichina immediately wiped her hand down, and I quickly informed her that the water bottle was to blame. I then proceeded to disappear.

So those are all my photos, but don’t think I’m done with stories. Remember those raffles I mentioned? WELL. As the night wore on, the prizes got better and better. Sort of. On the high end was a fancy phone, tickets to Disneyland, and a camcorder. Not too shabby, considering. Anyway, after several winners had come and gone, I started to lose faith that my ticket would ever be called. I don’t win raffles anyway. Fate doesn’t work that way. Still, I couldn’t help but get caught up in the excitement when Rich Field announced that the next prize would be… a BLURAY PLAYER. Ooohs and ahhhs all around.
As much as I had tried to limit my emotional investment in this raffle, I just couldn’t stop myself from thinking, nay, dreaming “WHAT IF???” A BluRay player would be so cool. And for free! Maybe this would be my raffle moment!
But it wasn’t.
Someone else won the BluRay player, and once again, my heart was RIPPED in two as it has been so many times. As I sulked quietly in my chair, Rich then announced the next prize: dinner for four at Wilhelm’s Savannah Burbank. Huh? I didn’t even know what Wilhelm’s was. Probably some German schnitzel factory near Ikea. Knowing my luck, THIS would be the prize I would win.
AND IT WAS.
However, despite being so cynical and crestfallen over the entire situation, the sheer excitement of being a WINNER completely overwhelmed me. I literally shouted “THAT’S ME!” and pumped my arms into the air like the worst kind of Price is Right contestant. The only difference was that there was no loud music playing, and I wasn’t surrounded by hundreds of dancing, cheering people. Of course, it only took about half a second before my sheer ebullience transformed into utter embarrassment. I issued a formal apology to the people around me and then marched down to Rich Fields, who handed me a nifty black gift bag. I can’t lie: I felt like I had won ten million dollars. Wilhelm’s, here I come!
But wait. Not all was right in game show land. When I returned to my seat, I opened my bag and discovered not a gift certificate for Wilhelm’s (which I was now deadset on going to) but instead a gift certificate for DANCE LESSONS. Oh my. There had been a tragic mixup! I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t just go back up there. But I didn’t want dance lessons! I showed Lisa the gift certificate, which featured a large photo of the dance instructor, and being the eagle-eyed blogger that she is, Lisa immediately recognized the woman. Turns out she was sitting in the row ahead of us.
“THERE SHE IS! THERE’S THE DANCE INSTRUCTOR!” Lisa loudly announced, pointing directly at the woman (just in case there was any confusion). The lady turned around, saw that I had dance lessons, smiled broadly, and then mouthed “Did you win my lessons?” Great. NO MORE WILHELMS FOR ME. I nodded yes and realized I had now been totally committed to my faulty prize. Oy.
Afterwards, the dance instructor came up to me and told me all about her dance classes and studio and how excited she was to have me. She was remarkably sweet, and I felt bad for secretly not wanting to do it. But then I decided I would just get over myself and do it. A) It’ll probably be fun; B) it’ll probably be more useful than a free dinner; and C) it’ll make for a great story. So you heard it here first, people. I’m gonna be taking four dance lessons in the imminent future, and yes, I will certainly be blogging about it.
All in all, it was a super fun night — both campy and cool at the same time. Thanks to Bob Boden for putting it together!