Am just back from the Emmy nominations announcements at the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in North Hollywood, where every year, a sleepy-looking mix of reporters and publicists -- plus a couple of bright-eyed actors and many, many sylph-like creatures from entertainment news shows -- gather before dawn so that East Coast viewers can watch the nominations at a somewhat less ungodly hour.
Just so you know.
Kristin Chenoweth and Neil Patrick Harris were adorable in the roles of actors who've been asked to read names off a list and are expected to act surprised when they, too, are nominated, but other than the hot breakfast -- courtesy of the Hollywood Reporter -- the real fun this morning was watching the publicity team of AMC's "Mad Men," who were positively gleeful about the staggering 16 nominations their little basic-cable period drama received.
Not bad for a channel that until fairly recently was known for showing old movies that Turner Classic Movies didn't happen to have the rights to.
The publicists are there to call producers and actors, who aren't expected to stagger to North Hollywood in the wee hours for stuff like this. I heard FX's chief media relations guy, John Solberg, placing a call to "Damages" co-creator Todd Kessler right after the show's nomination for outstanding series, the first series nomination ever for FX, which broke into the Emmys big in 2002 with Michael Chiklis' win for lead actor in "The Shield." Don't know how Kessler sounded, but Solberg was clearly pretty pleased.
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