Can I lick those? (or... Who isn’t parading around their falsies?!) 
By Carol Banks Weber

I thought watching the Emmys live would be beneficial with less time spent playing catch up on the boards and in my columns. Close, but...then, there’s “Catty” McClain hogging up the airtime thinkin’ she’s Susan Sarandon or some shit. 

SOAPNET’S SPECIAL EMMY PREVIEW SHOW,

or... ANY EXCUSE TO GIVE LINDA DANO A GIG 

Last year, I missed SoapNet’s “Daytime Emmy Preview Show,” due to a replay malfunction (rather, my own brain malfunction, but hey, I digress). I vowed I wouldn’t this year, but then I took that back within the first two minutes of the intro. 

As I mentioned in SoapZone’s  “News & Gossip” page for the week of May 24, 2004 (unless Jeff edited that portion out), the three co-hosts – Walt Willey (Jackson, AMC), Linda Dano (ex-Rae, OLTL; ex-Felicia, AW/ATWT) and Alison Sweeney (Sami, DOOL) – were ill-suited for their new and unlikely roles as color commentators and reporters. Willey looked totally out of, missing camera cues, flubbing the actual name of the awards ceremony yet to come and generally convincing me he had hit the bars a little too early. Dano, was Dano, boring me to death with her inquiries about the designer of every starlet’s gown, shoes and jewelry, cooing about how jealous she was of their thin, statuesque forms, I wanted to shove my four-year-old Avias up her designer ass. If that wasn’t bad enough, as Eye on Soaps’ resident fashionista Dayna mentioned in her Emmy review, Dano never failed to pimp her AW glory days or violate most people’s three-ft. distance rule. She finally succeeded though in making out with one of her interview victims when Nancy Lee Grahn (Alexis, GH) moved in for a deep throat. Sweeney, I have no fucking idea why that girl was there, short of...maybe SoapNet’s producers couldn’t find Kelly Ripa or Lisa Rinna to fill in at the last minute. 

Rinna might’ve at least provided some comic relief while satiating the prurient desires of the easily amused horndog set, as once again she arrived wearing a tea towel strategically arranged over her surgically enhanced body to significantly show off her two gigantic, porno-worthy tits. I don’t know why she bothered. She might as well have gone commando, bending over this way and that for the cameras .. 

The only reason awards preview shows are worth the nickel they’re bought in, is to do what the fans in person are doing, standing around in the rain or the humidity or the heat in hopes of catching sight of more than a few of their favorite soap characters off-screen, then later dishing about who went with whom and who wore what outlandish ghetto-slut attire over some double-decker pastrami sandwiches and a couple of bottles of Scotch in a late-night Times Square dive. 

Next year (and I won’t be watching anymore, thanks), just do away with the co-hosts, save money and plant a few kamikaze cameramen around key points of the red carpet, a pre-Emmy cam designed to capture these overly coiffed, overly rehearsed actors out of their element and possibly behaving badly, inappropriately. 

That or... get Lisa Rinna to wear a see-through thong bikini, fur-lined of course, and drop a lot of quarters. 
 

THE 31ST ANNUAL DAYTIME EMMYS

or... WHAT VILLAGE IDIOT THOUGHT TO ASK VANESSA MARCIL TO HOST? 

Following in the footsteps of her best gal pal Lisa Rinna (SoapTalk), Vanessa Marcil (Las Vegas; ex-Brenda, GH) kicked off the Daytime Emmy awards ceremony in a revealing gown with a plunging neckline so far down I almost thought I saw bush. Okay, slight exaggeration, but I did see her milk duds. 

I don’t mind showing off what the good Lord gave ya, but if you’re asked to represent the Daytime Emmys as its hostess and mistress of ceremonies, at least dress up a little. Wear some nipple covers. Eschew brown for a more flattering cobalt blue. (And stop bragging that you’re so fucking unconventional.) 

After her forgettable, conventional, attempt at mimicking the dry, effortless, casual and humorous banter of a, say, David Letterman, I promptly forgot all about her until she introduced co-presenter Tyler Christopher (Nikolas, GH) as her “ex-boyfriend,” asked where Peter Fonda was (Who gives a fuck?) and almost cried about Anna Lee’s (Lila, GH) lifetime achievement award. 

But then most of the evening, save for the lifetime achievement awards segment honoring those who haven’t yet passed away, was forgettable. 

I did my requisite decibel 10 cheering for Rick Hearst (Ric, GH) as outstanding supporting actor, Chad Brannon (ex-Zander, GH) as outstanding younger actor and anybody else but Eden Riegel (Bianca, AMC) as outstanding younger actress. I issued a hearty Whew! when Michelle Stafford (Phyllis, Y&R) finally won outstanding leading actress over Tamara Braun (Carly, GH) – did this woman actually think she had a chance in hell?! – and Nancy Lee Grahn (Alexis, GH) – who really never held much hope for herself after the past year of paltry material, a win that should’ve gone to Stafford last year had someone not fucked up then passed the fuck-up onto another someone else. 

I shook my head in disgust at The View’s co-hosts co-presenting some award, looking like they just got off 52nd street, if ya get my drift, Star in her fur, Meredith in her jogging sweats, Joy in her Walmart pink, Elizabeth in her ballerina outfit, Barbara in her matronly Madame purple, making lame jokes—and probably making worse ones, peppered with insults and immature whining come Monday’s show. I widened my eyes in shock that Roger Howarth (Paul, ATWT; ex-Todd, OLTL) was even there, much less joking around about his hair for God’s sakes with the master of banality, Linda Dano, in the SoapNet “Emmy Preview Special.” I’d have at least asked Howarth why he betrayed OLTL, something to get a rise out of his smirky ass. And noticed pretty much the same shit all of you noticed. 

But then it hit me... the repetition of the board posters in their firsthand recaps, somehow psychically picking up on which actors were surprisingly nice and surprisingly rude and surprisingly impossibly beautiful, skinny, small, who sat apart from whom and why did Scott Clifton mock the fans like that (or was he mocking himself?), and did the nominees all need to take a shit in the middle of the ceremony, was Tony Geary asking a hooker out for lunch in his Danish trip?, the happy, hopeful, humble facades that I know for certain broke at the after parties, which we, the lowly commoners, dirty diseased faces pressed to their clinking champagne flutes, will never be privy to, the shmoozing, air kisses, Linda Dano shoe, skin and bones fetish, probably more than a handful of winning actors apologizing through the soap press for forgetting to thank certain important co-stars, like it’s a fucking cure for cancer (HEY, HE FORGOT IN ALL HIS EXCITEMENT AND IN TRYING TO MAKE THE TIME LIMIT ON ACCEPTANCE SPEECHES, SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT IT ALREADY!)... 

It’s just like the soaps I watch. Okay sometimes. Outstanding in others. But mostly, repetitious, the same stories recycled, the same characters pimped, the same shit, dressed up, and they expect me to believe it’s different this time, it’s huge and it’s worth dropping my real life for five days out of the week, especially when it suits THEM every Sweeps period. They should just ask me for 15 percent of my paycheck and then go home. 

I’m not really saying anything new. Neither are you and your pals. 

Maybe if the soaps were better. Maybe if OLTL got more respect, and more nominations (this show should be swimming in ‘em next year, with Viki’s heart story). Maybe if the place didn’t stink up with the entrenched stench of smug, indulgent, lazy head writers and executive producers. Maybe if Hogan Sheffer wore a toupee that remotely looked convincing. Maybe if I could attend in person to see for myself... 

Next year, I’m watching the replay recording over the weekend, so I can FF through the non-soap-opera-performance stuff and freeze frame on Lisa Rinna’s, Vanessa Marcil’s, McKenzie Westmore’s and Sharon Case’s tits. 

ps. Hey asshole! Yeah you, Mr. St. John, pay attention to your JOB as a co-presenter, take Kassie’s hand, escort her to the podium like a fucking gentleman and try to plaster a semblance of a smile on your face. Or don’t bother coming at all, Mr. Integrity. That one very public move alone has completely undone my previous respect for your emotionally honest work on OLTL. And Kassie, honey, it’s the year 2004, not the 1800s in plantation Georgia. Oops, one more thing: Cady, they was robbed. 

 

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