"Over the last two decades, 'The Comeback' has become something of a cult classic, and Kudrow’s depiction of Cherish — her big red hair, her earnest demeanor, her totally unique turns-of-phrase..."

"... remains a meme in present day. Earlier this year, Variety published a list titled  'The 100 Greatest TV Performances of the 21st Century,' and ranked Kudrow in 'The Comeback' at No. 4. The show, however, has never been broadly popular. HBO canceled 'The Comeback' after it premiered in 2005 because of low ratings, before bringing it back — to the surprise of the industry — for a second season nearly a decade later. The season got a rapturous response from some critics but the result was the same: The ratings were very low...."

From "'The Comeback' to Come Back/Lisa Kudrow’s critically beloved cult comedy will return to HBO next year, the network announced on Friday" (NYT).

You may remember, long ago, in September 2005, I told you "The Comeback" was my favorite TV show:

Just yesterday, re-watching the last episode of my favorite TV show, "The Comeback," I said, "Valerie Cherish is my favorite TV character, ever."

"Really? What about Seinfeld?"

"No." I thought back over all the TV characters I could remember to see if anyone meant so much to me and said, "There's only one other person I can think of: Maynard G. Krebs."

Should I be watching Alec Baldwin's new reality show? "The Comeback" is my all-time favorite TV comedy.

I'm reading "The Baldwins Isn’t Alec Baldwin’s Comeback—It’s Basically The Comeback/On his cringey TLC show, the actor bears more than a slight resemblance to Lisa Kudrow’s Valerie Cherish" (Vanity Fair).

Like Valerie, Alec is an actor who appears to be seeking redemption by turning to a foreign medium that he might have at one time considered beneath him. While Valerie often calls out for her producer “Jane,” it similarly takes Alec about a minute into his show’s first episode to look directly into the camera, as if pleading for help, and explicitly spell out why his five-bedroom apartment is too small for his big family. Valerie attempts to produce her show as she’s being filmed, constantly interjecting about what she thinks should be left on the cutting room floor. Likewise, as they shoot a close-up of him cleaning his garbage can, Alec tosses out a question to the crew: “You don’t really wanna film this, do you?” But when one of his sons says something Alec deems entertaining, he changes his tune: “That was worth the whole day [of filming]! Line of the day!” Alec can’t help but regularly point out the brushstrokes and the mechanics of the show his family is filming as they’re filming it.

"Thank you so much for being the person for all of us on 'Friends' that was — I don’t know if this is the right way to say it — but the different one, or the one that was really herself."

Said Lady Gaga to Lisa Kudrow on the "Friends" reunion, quoted in "'Friends: The Reunion': 5 Things We Learned/You might think there’s nothing more to know about the show and its cast, but the reunion special, which premiered Thursday on HBO Max, reveals a few things" (NYT).

I watched it, and in fact, I have watched every episode of "Friends" — all, save one, in the last few years.  I came to the show familiar with only one of the performers, and that was Lisa Kudrow. I considered "The Comeback" the best TV comedy ever, and I'd always been a big fan of the movie "Romy and Michele's High School Reunion."

But I didn't really like hearing Lady Gaga say that Kudrow's character was "the one that was really herself." The others were... what? Really somebody other than themselves? Maybe Gaga doesn't have facility with language, but I think she deliberately said something challenging, because she prefaced the remark with "I don’t know if this is the right way to say it." Well, the rest of us don't know what "it" is. My interpretation was that she meant to characterize Phoebe (Kudrow's character) as the outsider. In that light, perhaps it's comforting and exciting for many viewers to see that character gets to be with the other 5. The idea seems to be that the popular kids include one oddball in their group, as if that must be every oddball's dream. 

Gaga's theory — as I understand it — is a putdown of the rest of the characters — and of the entire show — who are all outsiders in their own way.

Another issue with the Gaga appearance: Was it at the expense of Chrissie Hynde? The Gaga bit used material from the episode — "The One with the Baby on the Bus" — that had Chrissie Hynde playing "Smelly Cat" with Phoebe. If I had to look at pop stars to find the different one, or the one that was really herself, I'd pick Hynde before Gaga. The disinclusion troubles me. The show is all about keeping the original group together (even though — spoiler alert — the series refrained from ending with each of the characters married to one of the others (4 ended up in Friend-on-Friend couples, but they brought in an outsider to marry Phoebe, and they left Joey without a love of his life)).

ADDED: Here's Chrissie Hynde on the show:

For all you "Comeback" fans... this was live on YouTube last night:

"Ordinary speech can emit small respiratory droplets that linger in the air for at least eight minutes and potentially much longer..."

"... according to a study published Wednesday that could help explain why infections of the coronavirus so often cluster in nursing homes, households, conferences, cruise ships and other confined spaces with limited air circulation. The report, from researchers at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases and the University of Pennsylvania, was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a peer-reviewed journal. It is based on an experiment that used laser light to study the number of small respiratory droplets emitted through human speech. The answer: a lot."

From "Experiment shows human speech generates droplets that linger in the air for more than 8 minutes" by Joel Achenbach (in WaPo).

How did we ever sit together in restaurants and talk and eat? Saliva was always constantly flying about and getting up our nose and into our mouth and onto our food! It was inexpressibly gross. And now that we know, how can we ever eat anywhere near another person... at least another person whom we wouldn't feel okay about French kissing? How can we talk with anyone other than over the internet? Human life as we have known it is over... but we can't say that. What would be the point? Life is too unhealthful to be lived?

Louder speech produces more droplets, [the researchers] note. The paper estimates that one minute of “loud speaking” generates “at least 1,000 virion-containing droplet nuclei that remain airborne” for more than eight minutes.

Okay, so maybe just tweak human life. Make improvements. Speak, but speak quietly.



AND:



PLUS: Here's a game for your coronavirus lockdown: "Say It Don't Spray It - The Word Game That Gets You Wet! The Ultimate Party Game That Brings Uncontrollable Laughter!"

Say It Don't Spray It is a hilarious variation on the category game that most people have played at one time or another! It is amazing how just a small amount of water creates a tremendous amount of anticipation, funny faces and general hilarity.

"Are you still a believer in Santa?... Because at 7, that’s marginal, right?”

Until this morning, I'd only seen Trump's end of the Santa-is-marginal conversation:

Donald Trump, answering phone call from 7-year-old on Christmas Eve: "Are you still a believer in Santa? Because at seven it's marginal, right?" pic.twitter.com/VHexvFSbQ1

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) December 25, 2018

I did find that very funny... for a cluster of reasons:

1. I didn't think a 7-year-old, especially a 7-year-old who still believed in Santa, would understand the word "marginal."

2.  The question "Do you believe in X?" doesn't imply that X is not real. People who ask "Do you believe in God?" are not implying that there is no God. The word "still" has some hint that you need to get smart and abandon that false belief, but it could just as well mean that I knew that you used to believe and I wonder if you've maintained your faith. You could ask someone "Are you still a Christian?" without expressing doubt in Christianity. Trump didn't lay that hard on the word "still."

3. I could see that the people who are always looking to attack Trump were jumping on what was at most a tiny glitch is a nice Christmas thing he was doing, and I think those people are so tedious. I have expressed sympathy for them, because they are missing so much humor, humor that I am really enjoying. But then I had to admit to myself that part of why it's funny to me is that I know a whole lot of people will just be steamed and outraged. Thanks, Trump haters. Thanks for honing the edge of Trump's transgression. Your grim that's-not-funnyism is making it funnier.

4. When all we have is Trump's side of the conversation we have to imagine what he's reacting to. I'd thought, based on his warm smile, that after he said "Are you still a believer in Santa?" he got a somewhat hedging answer from a knowing child, and he formed a bond with the child by saying, I get you, you still say you believe but you don't believe believe like a little kid. I thought Trump had a genuine moment with a specific 7-year-old individual.

But now I have to give up on #4, because the press seems to have found the 7-year-old, complete with video from her end, and she doesn't seem to be a knowing child getting into a charmingly confidential confession of marginal belief with Trump. She seems perfectly childish and she simply says "Yes, sir" to everything he says. But I am confirmed in point #1. She didn't understand the word "marginal." The main problem with Trump was that he was talking to her on too high of a level. Maybe his own children were a little more sophisticated at age 7. Whatever. I think it's funny. Still! Even though one of my reasons for enjoying it is shot to hell.

Bonus: I've been watching the box set of the entire series "Friends," and just by chance this is something I watched the other day. Joey's in the Trump position here, unwittingly blowing the child-woman's belief in Santa (which, at 27, is really marginal, right?):

Watching scenes in movies and on TV where there are lots of candles next to the bed, do you worry about the bedding catching on fire?

I understand why set designers want to put candles around a bed — to set a mood. But my mood ends up being: Get those candles away from bed.

I've seen the candles-by-the-bed setup many times, but here's where I saw it most recently. As you may know, I'm slowly working my way through a box set of the complete episodes of "Friends," so that's where this comes from. I like this little scene a lot, quite apart from the candles-by-the-bed issue. Phoebe is trying to soothe the lovelorn Monica by doing some absurd ritual of going to your "happy place":

"I was discussing this topic, specifically in reference to The Comeback with a friend of mine who is a straight, male television critic."

"I said to him that I feel like with straight white men, it does not occur to them that maybe not everything in the world is for them. Which isn’t to say that there aren’t plenty of straight white men who love The Comeback, because there are.... But when you’re a woman or something other than a straight, white man, you actually do get — because you must — that not everything is for you. And that’s OK. You’re used to it. The Comeback is not more dark or unrelatable than Breaking Bad. But a high school teacher who becomes a crystal meth kingpin? That is unrelatable. And that is dark!"

From "'The Comeback' Completes Its Perfect Comeback/Lisa Kudrow discussed the finale, the second season as a whole, and addressed important questions (i.e., is Valerie Cherish Jewish?) with BuzzFeed News."

ADDED: For those who don't click through, the quote comes from the interviewer, not Kudrow.

"How come I know you don’t write anything you don’t want broadcast in an email? How come I know that? Who’s advising people?"

Said the actress Lisa Kudrow, commenting on the leaked emails of Sony executives (in which, for example, Leonardo DiCaprio was called "despicable").

"It doesn't matter how many times [an email] says 'This is confidential, meant for just between the sender and the recipient,'" [Kudrow] said. "Why don't we know that there are no rules? Everything is broadcast and published. That's the part I just don't understand."

That tough reality has made Kudrow extremely cautious of what she says.

"I mean, I have almost no opinions anymore," she joked.

Kudrow asks a good question — and she seems to imply that the answer is that these executives were embarrassingly ignorant and out of touch with modern life. But there could be other explanations. I thought of two:

1. Email is an efficient way to conduct business, but only when the speech is sharp and clear and cuts through all the crap. The successful executives are the ones who can communicate like this, and for them, at least until now, it has been worth the risk. Email couched in pleasantries and euphemisms would waste everyone's time and make you look insufficiently hard-assed. The risk of leakage was far outweighed by the potential to succeed, and those who weigh the risk otherwise don't get to these positions of power in the first place. It's fine for an actress to cultivate her niceness image, but she's got a entirely different kind of career. And having "almost no opinions" is a good low-risk strategy for her.

2. The Hollywood executives actually don't mind if these opinions leak out. They won't come forward now and own up to actually thinking Leonardo DiCaprio was "despicable" to withdraw from whatever commitment he made to play the role of Steve Jobs in another Steve Jobs biopic or that Angelina Jolie, who was bothering them somehow over another biopic of Cleopatra, is "a minimally talent spoiled brat." Pressuring/controlling/manipulating celebrities is what these executives need to do, and creating anxieties about whether they will get their projects funded or will get work in the future is part of how they play their game. Maybe the executives want Leo and Angie and the others to know that the executives expect better compliance.

I'm not saying I'm sure either or both of those things are true. I'm just playing with alternate scenarios and trying to open up the discussion.

The Yawn.

Perhaps you witnessed it, on this week's episode of "The Comeback":

While Valerie [Lisa Kudrow] is talking to the landlady, Mrs. Yi (AkikoKato), she spontaneously erupts into what could have been a seizure, a mating call or an alien birth, but it turns out to be simply…a yawn.

"[Akiko] is a woman with a genuine accent and she made a choice to yawn because she thought the character was tired," explains writer and co-executive producer Amy B. Harris... "So that's a perfect example of Lisa's improv. That was not in the script. (Akiko) just sort of made some interesting choices and it was 3 am. And when Lisa saw the yawn, she just said, ‘What is that?' and then several beats later, ‘Oh, it's a yawn.' She never breaks."

But the people working behind the scenes? They could not have broken more. "I remember it was 3 am and we were all sitting in a random apartment building parking lot just rolling around laughing," Harris says. "Honestly, I don't know that I've ever laughed that hard in my life. We were dying laughing." 

But you probably missed it, because hardly anyone is watching "The Comeback." It's a big ratings flop. A yawn.

The comeback of "The Comeback."

HBO is bringing back my all-time favorite sit-com. "The Comeback" was cancelled after one season 9 years ago.

I said at the time:

I love HBO, but...

I am so mad at them for cancelling "The Comeback." I thought they were known for giving a show the chance to catch on, and "The Comeback" was notorious for the way people didn't get it at first. (Chez Althouse, we got it, but for some reason, people found it hard to get.) But only 1 million viewers saw the finale. I guess there's a limit to what is worth supporting.

What's wrong with people? The low popularity of that show makes me feel so lonely!

ADDED: You can buy the full set of the original "Comeback" season here. Highly recommended!

Is it possible that there will be "a comeback of 'The Comeback'" — my all-time favorite TV comedy?

The AV Club asks the wonderful Lisa Kudrow:

Well, you know… Yes. “Tentative” is the operative word, though. But Michael [Patrick King] and I can’t help but talk about it whenever we’re together, and as I said, we keep coming up with “Wouldn’t it be funny if she was doing this, this, and this” ideas. And then at some point, we start wondering, “Is it a special that we ask to do? Or is it a limited series that we ask to do? What are we asking to do? What is it that we want to do? What do we have time for? What would you be willing to do?” So that just keeps going back and forth. And Michael truly has no time right now, that’s for sure. 

If you don't know "The Comeback," it was a 1-season HBO show that, I guess, was a little challenging for viewers. Some say people had trouble watching the main character get into humiliating difficulties. (Were we more sophisticated back in the 1950s when we had great fun watching Lucille Ball get stymied at every turn?)

Here, buy every episode of "The Comeback" ever made (so far!), and either love it or complain to me about why it really did deserve to be cancelled.

Speaking of continuing great Lisa Kudrow things, the linked article also says there's a possibility of a sequel to "Romy and Michele's High School Reunion."

"While filming 'Friends,' cast members Courtney Cox, Jennifer Aniston and Lisa Kudrow ate the same Cobb salad every day for ten years."

People who eat the same thing every day... what's that all about?

***

What if you had to eat the same thing every day? What would you choose? What do you think would happen?

***

Is it about comfort?

WALLY: I'm looking for more comfort, because the world is very abrasive, I mean, I'm trying to protect myself, because really there are these abrasive beatings to be avoided everywhere you look.

ANDRE: Yeah, but Wally, don't you see that comfort can be dangerous? I mean, you like to be comfortable and I like to be comfortable, too. But comfort can lull you into a dangerous tranquility. I mean, my mother knew a woman, Lady Hatfield, who was one of the richest women in the world, and she died of starvation because all she would eat was chicken. I mean, she just liked chicken, Wally, and that was all she would eat, and actually, her body was starving but she didn't know it 'cause she was quite happy eating her chicken and so, she finally died! See, I honestly believe that we're all like Lady Hatfield now, we're having a lovely, comfortable time with our electric blankets and our chicken, and meanwhile we're starving because we're so cut off from contact with reality that we're not getting any real sustenance.

"I need a moment alone... I don't want to talk to anyone."

A bonus clip from "The Comeback" — the great, great HBO comedy with Lisa Kudrow. I was looking for a different clip, but wanted to share this anyway, or let's just say it fits today's blog theme.

What I was looking for is the scene where Valerie Cherish (Kudrow) is posing for a publicity photograph and keeps doing that ridiculous pouting thing in an effort to make her lips look sexy. I was looking for that to go along with this hilarious slideshow of "Celebrity pouters."

"Web Therapy," with Lisa Kudrow.

I love this new web show. Boing Boing says:

Now there's a new entrant in the genre of "webcam narrative": Web Therapy starring, co-written and co-produced by the brilliant Lisa Kudrow. But Web Therapy as the name might imply, is not another one-sided windbag borefest, it's -- hello -- actual two-way conversations that purportedly take place in real time (just 3 minutes per session!) over dual webcams between annoying psychologist Dr. Fiona Wallace and her exasperated patients. What a simple, yet clever idea! One that makes sense that it occurs over webcams.

Dual webcams and annoying people? That's Bloggingheads-y. I mean, it's like what Bloggingheads could be if everyone didn't feel such a need to preserve their dignity and professional standing... and was allowed to create fictionalized conflicts....

Anyway, as you know -- or could learn by clicking the "Lisa Kudrow" tag -- I adore Lisa Kudrow. Not from "Friends," which I never found interesting enough to watch (other than that one time when Brad Pitt was on). I loved "The Comeback," which I consider the best TV comedy of all time.

TiVo-blogging the Emmys.

The Emmy show gets off to a spectacularly bad beginning with a prerecorded comedy sketch. We see Conan O'Brien on a plane, asked by a flight attendant if he's nervous, and he says, "What could possibly go wrong?" There's an explosion that rocks the plane, and then there's a cut to a beach, with Conan crawling out of the surf and the plane, in the background, sinking into the ocean. The folks on the laugh track are yukking it up. That would have been pushing it, considering the recent foiled terrorist plot, but with a plane crash in the news today -- 49 people were killed -- it's just atrocious. Don't they have the sense to pull it? The message is, we've got this preprogrammed, and there's nobody here with a brain.

Well, they worked so hard on it. It's a play on "Lost," and Conan finds a hatch. Descending, he's in the set of "The Office." This leads into a "24" sequence. Am I forgiving them? No! He encounters "House," then he enters the "South Park" trapped-in-a-closet closet. And then on to a "Dateline" exposé about child predators.

Man, they put a lot of effort into this. They should have thought of the air crash problem when they planned it.

Okay, Althouse. Settle down. Your censoriousness will only drive readers away.

Conan paces back and forth on the stage, spitting out his monologue jokes, interspersed with shots of the audience, seemingly enjoying it. There's lots of actress flesh on view, and it jiggles as they applaud the jokes. Whatever happened to anorexia? Everyone looks plump tonight. Are the jokes any good? He hands out rules for acceptance speeches. Sample: "Anyone who makes a heavy-handed political comment tonight will be forced to make out with Al Gore in a Prius."

He does a parody of "Trouble" (from "The Music Man"). It's about how bad NBC ratings are. Why should we care? Get to the awards! It's like they're desperate to prove to us that they're putting on a show. And it's a show on NBC. And if this is your idea of a show, well, maybe you deserve your bad ratings. Go cry about it in private somewhere.

One of the first presenters is Ellen Pompeo, wearing a long dark blue dress that she's clutching together with her hand at the right buttock. Is she just holding it up so she won't trip? No, she's at the mike, and she's still keeping her grip! Must be a wardrobe malfunction. The award is Best Supporting Actress. Megan Mullally wins. Doesn't she always win? She's in dark blue too. Sort of a bathrobe-like thing. She incites us to be all emotional about the end of "Will and Grace." Sorry. I don't care.

In the next presenter set, we've got Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and she's wearing a white dress that has a sparkly black "H" superimposed around the breasts. The award is Best Supporting Actor. The clip of William Shatner makes me laugh out loud so I switch my loyalty t0 him from Michael Imperioli. Alan Alda wins, and he's the only one not there. That's so wrong.

Dragging things out, Conan has a comedy bit about how the show won't go over three hours. They've got Bob Newhart sealed in a tube with only three hours of air. He's about 80 years old, so threatening to kill him is a little disturbing. But it's nice to see Bob again, albeit entubed.

Martin and Charlie Sheen. They awkwardly read the cue cards. Best Supporting Actress again? Oh, now it's in a drama. Sorry, those previous awards were limited to comedies. Emmys, I see, follow the Golden Globe, not the Oscars, approach. Blythe Danner wins. She's all actressily effusive, like it's not memorized. And her dress is yards of teal-colored fabric that looks like it was draped together in a 1-day challenge by the losing contestant on "Project Runway."

Supporting Actor in a Comedy. Oh, I see the previous supporting actor award was for the drama actor. They are not doing this in an orderly way. I will catch on. As you can see, I'm not a regular Emmy viewer. The winner is Jeremy Piven.

Oh, Heidi Klum is giving an award. Variety, Music or Comedy Series. "The Daily Show" beats "The Colbert Report" (and Conan O'Brien).

Ooh, Simon Cowell, with the neck of his shirt all open revealing his furry chest. It's a tribute to Dick Clark and "Bandstand." You know, I watched that show, even as far back as the 1950s. I remember seeing "Little" Stevie Wonder on the show doing "Fingertips" on his 13th birthday. I remember when the kids who danced on the show were celebrities, written about in the teen magazines. It was once necessary when talking about Dick Clark to make a joke about how he looked forever young. But that's not the way it is anymore. He looks very old. He can't walk out, and, recovering from a stroke, he can't speak clearly, and his voice is very deep. He introduces Barry Manilow who comes out dancing -- and he has hip problems -- and demonstrates that the "Bandstand" theme song has lyrics.

Variety or Musical Performance is the next award. Manilow is one of the nominees. And he wins! Beating Stephen Colbert and David Letterman.

Guest Actor? Oh, come on. Too many categories. But they speed through this, and I'm glad to see Patricia Clarkson won for "Six Feet Under." I'm skipping some of these awards. I'd be crazy not to.

Conan does a routine on TiVo fastforwarding using TiVo fastforwarding, which I discover while fastforwarding on TiVo. So it's double fastforwarded. That was freaky.

Lead Actor in a Comedy Series. Tony Shaloub. Doesn't he always win? I don't watch his show, so I was rooting for Steve Carell or Larry David, whose shows I do watch.

Candice Bergen is stuffed into a white shirt and teal-colored skirt and held together with a big bulky leather and metal belt. She says something about TV not being a vast wasteland, and it just draws more attention to her vast waist land. She's introducing a tribute to Aaron Spelling. He was, apparently, a veritable god.

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert present the Reality show award, and Colbert throws a tantrum about losing to Barry Manilow. "Singing and dancing is not performing!" "The Amazing Race" wins. I've watched that a couple times. Don't enjoy it. Travel travails. Ugh! I wanted "Project Runway" to win. Did you notice they spotlighted Andrae in the little clip. What happened to Andrae?

In Memoriam: Shelley Winters. Don Knotts. Richard Pryor.

I love the look on Annette Bening's face when Helen Mirren beats her for Best Actress in a Miniseries or Movie. [ADDED: It's the look of no reaction at all, except that in that frozen expanse, there is an expression.] And I love the way Mirren says, "My great triumph is not falling ass over tit as I came up those stairs." It's all British, so it's not rude, right? Ahhss.

Lead Actress in a Drama. Ah, here's a big category. Mariska Hargitay wins. Another show I don't watch.... so I have no opinion.

Actress in a Comedy. Okay. This is actually the only thing I care about. I want Lisa Kudrow to win for "The Comeback." Not that I think she will. Julia Louis-Dreyfus wins. She's all weepy, like she can barely get through it.

Actor in a Drama. Kiefer Sutherland. He's the opposite of Julia. He's all calm and mature. Dignified.

Bob Newhart is released from his tube to do the award for Best Comedy Series. He's bizarrely short standing next to Conan O'Brien. "The Office" wins. That makes sense.

Annette Bening does the Drama Series award. I only watch "The Sopranos," but I don't think it should win. It wasn't that good this year. "24" wins.

And that's it for a night at the Emmys!

Biggest Emmy snub and the Emmy thing I'm thrilled about.

No nomination for Edie Falco. Good! I think she's a terrific actress, and she's done a great job of bringing dimension to the loathsome Carmela Soprano over the years, but the whole show was trying way too hard to deliver her the Emmy on a silver platter this season. I said it here:

Are these scripts a gift to Edie Falco? Is the actress groveling for an Emmy with all of these harshly lit, no-makeup bedside scenes?

I'm glad the Emmy people, whoever they are, stand up to this kind of begging. Beating her out for the nomination are Frances Conroy ("Six Feet Under"), Geena Davis ("Commander in Chief"), Mariska Hargitay (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit"), Allison Janney ("The West Wing") and Kyra Sedgwick ("The Closer").

But here's the real news I care about: Lisa Kudrow is nominated for "The Comeback." Her competition in the comic actress category: Stockard Channing ("Out of Practice"), Jane Kaczmarek ("Malcolm in the Middle"), Debra Messing ("Will & Grace") and Julia Louis-Dreyfus ("The New Adventures of Old Christine"). Though her show -- cancelled! -- did not get a nomination -- the comedies are "Arrested Development," "Curb Your Enthusiasm," "The Office," "Scrubs" and "Two and a Half Men" -- perhaps the recognition she's getting might inspire HBO to let "The Comeback" come back. That was a brilliant, brilliant comedy, and her performance was truly sublime.

Come on, HBO, bring it back. I'll say I love "Lucky Louie" if you do!

ADDED: I see that the nomination procedures were changed this year:

In February, Emmy officials revamped guidelines in hopes of making the nominations more inclusive.

Under the new approach, the AP observes, blue-ribbon panels pick the five nominees each for comedy and drama series from 10 front-runners as decided by a vote of the academy's general membership. Videotapes of shows were used by panelists in their decisions. Previously, leading vote-getters in the general vote were declared the final nominees.

Great.

I'm glad to see that Robin Givhan won a Pulitzer Prize.

Here's the report in her newspaper, The Washington Post. The category is Criticism. Criticize all you want, but she's my favorite bloggable columnist. There was that column on Condoleezza Rice's stiletto boots:

As Rice walked out to greet the troops, the coat blew open in a rather swashbuckling way to reveal the top of a pair of knee-high boots. The boots had a high, slender heel that is not particularly practical. But it is a popular silhouette because it tends to elongate and flatter the leg. In short, the boots are sexy.

Blogged here:

Robin Givhan... heavy-breathes about the sexuality of Rice's clothes, even though all we're really talking about here is that the outfit was all black ("The darkness lends an air of mystery and foreboding"), that the boots had high heels ("Heels … alter her posture in myriad enticing ways, all of which are politically incorrect to discuss"), and that women often dress much less attractively ("She was not wearing a bland suit with a loose-fitting skirt and short boxy jacket with a pair of sensible pumps").

Women with power easily unleash ideation about sex -- and sex and power. If the woman can't be contained by the thought that her powerfulness has removed her sexuality altogether, then the thought becomes that her sexuality has merged with her power. In the case of Condoleezza Rice, who has a high position of power and is distinctly attractive, she seems to become a strange new being -- a superhero – like Neo in "The Matrix"!

Is it wrong to talk about powerful women this way? I say no. Image, fashion, and beauty are all important. And we certainly didn't refrain from talking about how the male candidates for President looked in 2004. We obsessed over their ties, their hair and their makeup, and the bulges under their clothes. So go ahead and spout your theories about the meaning of Condoleezza Rice's high-heeled boots.

Mine is: these boots are made for running for President.

There was the one about John Bolton:

The fulsome silhouette of the mustache makes for a particularly dreary distraction and seems to pull his whole face downward. It makes Bolton, who is only 56, look hoary and dour. For a man who has shown little evidence of a capacity to charm -- an ability that can come in handy for an ambassador -- the mustache makes him appear unwelcoming. For all of the testimony about his spiteful dealings with both colleagues and underlings, and his denials of such behavior, he managed to look mean.

Blogged here:

Well, that goes along with my longtime opinion of mustaches: they make men look mean. Charlie Chaplin might be the only exception. Please men! Let us see your philtrum! Nothing makes a man more adorable than a well-shaped philtrum. And nothing uglifies like a mustache!

There was the one about what Judith Miller and Li'l Kim wore for their sentencing walks:

The women seemed acutely aware that the sentencing walk -- like its predecessor, the perp walk -- defines them in the public's mind. In its execution, it is not enough to stand straight and hold one's head high. This is a powerful visual image capable of conveying subtleties and broad strokes. Both women were playing to their fans.

Blogged here:

Givhan goes on to describe the effect serving time will have on the two women's careers. Since Li'l Kim is a rap artist, according to Givhan, it can only help. For rap fans: "The prison term seems less an ordeal than a right of passage." Well, you can argue about whether that's politically incorrect, but it sure is a usage error. Where are the WaPo proofreaders?

(Whoops.)

There was the one blogged here:

"Why dress in 'ho gear' and risk being treated like a hooker?"

Oh, come on. You're not going to blog every single essay Robin Givhan writes, are you?

Well, I don't know, maybe I should. You know she does ask some pretty tantalizing questions:

If clothes function as semiotics, where does the power lie -- with the sender or the receiver? And what happens when the sender is purposefully offering up misinformation?

Yeah, you find those questions tantalizing?

Uh, no, I guess not. Now that you mention it.

There was the one about Lisa Kudrow as Valerie Cherish:

All of ["The Comeback"]'s nuances are reflected in Cherish's most distinctive physical characteristic, her long red hair with its painstakingly organized curls that have been flipped back and away from her face. That hair is gloriously thick and the waves fall with an unnatural precision. The hair appears Breck Girl clean, devoid of the styling products now used to give hair an informal, slightly messy appearance. Hers is hair meant to be tossed in slow motion during the opening montage of "Baywatch."

In constructing the character, Kudrow has said that Cherish's hair color was a calculated decision. In Cherish's mind, "blond is dumb comedy, red hair is smart, sexy comedy." And, presumably, brunette isn't funny at all.

Blogged here:

Givhan doesn't mention it, but red hair and comedy are indelibly associated with Lucille Ball. But of course, Cherish is wrong about a lot of things, so Kudrow's analysis of how Cherish thinks must be understood in that light. But I have a feeling Lisa loves Lucy....

Why is red hair so meaningful?

There was the one blogged here:

"Standing alone, Mrs. Bush looked lovely."

"But next to Camilla, whose Robinson Valentino blazer and skirt made her look like a large rectangle, the first lady reminded one of a radiant bride shining brightly next to a dutifully bland bridesmaid." That's the description from WaPo's Robin Givhan, who also takes note of the President: "The president looked handsome in his tuxedo. For once he didn't have the body language of a kid with a bad sunburn forced to wear a wool suit."

The one blogged here:

Saddam on trial -- in a Western suit with a pocket square but no tie!

Robin Givhan wonders what that means:

The pocket square was a particularly distracting flourish. Paired with a tie, a pocket square tends to make a man look more formally attired. But without that accompaniment, it can look almost jaunty and rakish -- like Sinatra or Dino in Vegas.

Hussein's style choice throws the viewer off balance. Is his modest paean to the Flamingo a simple reflection of his hair-dyeing, gold-leaf-loving, frightful vanity? Or has he decided to beat the "occupiers" from within their own system? Take it over, or mock it?

There was the infamous slam at the Alitos, as blogged here:

"They often looked as though they had coordinated their ensembles in the manner of a family heading off to the Sears photo studio."

WaPo's Robin Givhan analyzes the Alitos from the fashion standpoint:

He and his wife of almost 21 years wore similar wire-rimmed glasses. His were only slightly more angular than hers. They both have short-cropped brown hair....On the first day of hearings, her red suit with its contrasting piping matched his red tie. On the second day, she echoed his pale blue shirt with her blue sweater, which fell discreetly to mid-thigh. On the fourth day, her white jacket over a red dress mirrored his white shirt and red tie.

Givhan skirts very close to sneering, but in the end, she seems rather admiring. Or is that patronizing?

Earlier she'd written about the more perfectly dressed John Roberts family, in a column called "An Image a Little Too Carefully Coordinated":

Dressing appropriately is a somewhat selfless act. It's not about catering to personal comfort. One can't give in fully to private aesthetic preferences. Instead, one asks what would make other people feel respected? What would mark the occasion as noteworthy? What signifies that the moment is bigger than the individual?

But the Roberts family went too far. In announcing John Roberts as his Supreme Court nominee, the president inextricably linked the individual -- and his family -- to the sweep of tradition. In their attire, there was nothing too informal; there was nothing immodest. There was only the feeling that, in the desire to be appropriate and respectful of history, the children had been costumed in it.

Reading about the Pulitzer Prize reminded me first of that column, which I was suprised to see I didn't blog about. Didn't everyone blog about that one? Looking back at my blog from that time, I can see why I didn't get to it. I was incredibly busy dealing with the nomination itself.

Givhan put down Hillary Clinton too:

After eight years as first lady wearing innumerable skirt suits that did little to flatter her physique, she now wears pants almost exclusively. As a matter of personal style, this is a good thing. The senator looks more streamlined and elegant.

Oh, don't say that's not a putdown. No woman wants to hear a compliment like that! Blogged here (getting to the subject of men in skirts).

Most recently, she caught my eye with this one about the way they dress on "American Idol," blogged here.

So congratulations to Robin Givhan! Keep up the richly bloggable work.

Beloved idiots.

I'm pulling a topic out of a comment thread. What do you think of the sort of TV comic character that's based nearly entirely on playing dumb? Some folks find it intolerable, but others think it's quite charming and a brilliant source of comedy. The currently controversial dummy character is Kellie Pickler on "American Idol." She's not (supposed to be) a fictional character, so her case is complicated by the suspicion that she's a fraud. I mean, how can you play dumb well if you're actually dumb? You wouldn't have the judgment to choose to blurt out the charmingly dumb remarks. Can she just be lucky?

I'm thinking that dumbness works especially well on TV. I don't have a theory why that's the case. But a couple great examples spring to mind: Goldie Hawn, Gracie Allen. Yes, I know my examples are ancient, but I haven't really watched many situation comedies since the 60s. Putting HBO to the side, I've only watched "Seinfeld," I think. (I've seen one episode of "Friends.") So help me out with recent examples of the great beloved idiots of the idiot box, and opine on the theory that dumb is good on TV.

Do you make a distinction between fiction and (supposedly) nonfiction shows? Maybe you love it when you know the dumb character is played by a very smart actress (like Lisa Kudrow) but you hate it when some reality show character tries to get the advantage by acting dumb or innocently gains an advantage by actually being dumb?

Another issue, quite obvious now that I've written this much, is whether it's different for males and females, and whether the physical beauty of the dummy is crucial.

"Project Jay" -- what's really going on here?

I finally got around to watching "Project Jay," the reality show that follows around Jay McCarroll, the Season 1 winner of the reality show "Project Runway." I was surprised to see that he played a little role on "The Comeback," that fiction show about a reality show that follows around Valerie Cherish, the star of the fictional fiction show "I'm It." He played the designer whose red dress Valerie Cherish (Lisa Kudrow) accidentally wears backwards to the Emmys.

Well, so, how real is "Project Jay" anyway? We see him getting a call from "Project Runway's" Heidi Klum asking him to make her a red dress to wear to the Emmys, and this sets off a flurry of activity with him rushing around trying to complete an assigned task that isn't really what he wants to do -- just like on "Project Runway." The task takes him out to Los Angeles, where he seeks out Kara Saun (from Season 1) to help him and where Heidi inflicts extra surprises on him to create tension: he didn't have her correct measurements (and expresses on-camera amazement at the immensity of her breasts), so he must remake the dress (with some weird old guy sent in to do the actual work), and then she rejects it anyway (making him cry). I smell phony, phony, phony.

And how about the scene where he just happens to be shopping at Mood (the fabric store incessantly featured on "Project Runway") and -- ooh, look! -- there's Austin Scarlett! (Another Season 1 contestant, in case you don't know.) Austin just happens to have a fashion show soon! What a coincidence! Then Jay goes to Austin's show, and Wendy is there. (If you don't know why that's ridiculous.... just get the Season 1 DVDs and get up to speed, please.)

Okay, all of this is just too absurdly set up! And how about the beginning, where he's back in rural Pennsylvania living with his parents and whining about how isolated he is? But the cameras are there making a reality show about him! Are we supposed to be idiots, or is this a spoof of a reality show?

Well, maybe the tip off is "The Comeback." We're supposed to laugh and enjoy our inside knowledge of the phoniness of reality shows. It's deliberately over-the-top phony, right?

I found this interview with Jay, which kind of hints at the real situation. He has some sort of contractual dispute with the "Project Runway" people, where I think maybe they all hate each other but still want to use each other. He refused the two main prizes he won, and, in the interview, says he can't talk about it but "use your imagination." Apparently, they wanted to own too much of him. I'll bet the Season 2 contracts lock the contestants into the deal beforehand.

TIME OUT NEW YORK: Who do you think will win the new season?

JM: I would love Santino to win. He’s edgy and I’m sick of this one-trick-pony thing that the judges keep telling him. That’s his style. That’s why Calvin Klein makes f**king tunics and why Betsey Johnson makes f**king floral chiffons. Mixing shit up is what he does. He’s arrogant as f**k and people will put him in his place along the way but, once again, he’s covering up for his insecurity. Look at him! He is a gigantic weirdo, six foot five, voice like the devil, looks like Lurch. Would I want to see more of Chloe? Probably not. Would I want to see more of Daniel V.? Probably not.

TONY: Will it be weird for you when there’s another winner?

JM: Let it move on. I’m trying to distance myself from the show and to establish Jay McCarroll. Am I supposed to be more thankful for the process? I feel like I’ve given so much. You saw ten weeks of me. I showed you my family, my collection, my thought process, I cried, I laughed. And I didn’t receive a penny.

Some very hard feelings there. We also learn that "Project Jay" was originally an 8 episode series, but that it got edited down to that one hour we saw. Okay, so I no longer think it was some "Comeback"-like spoof of a reality show. I think it was a crazy manifestation of contractual hostilities and commercial exploitation.

Oh, the things that can entertain us these days!