I was in the TC this past weekend to attend the Upper Midwest Emmy Awards (the Redemption Party videos I produced last year were nominated in a promotions category) and to visit Dad who, God willing, will be starting his second round of chemo at Abbott Northwestern Hospital this week (the peach-fuzzed monk is upbeat and ready to go to battle).

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Hollywood is apoplectic today with the news that 111-year-old talent agency William Morris is merging with the fourteen-year-old agency Endeavor. Endeavor was started in the mid-nineties by Ari Emanuel (the inspiration for Entourage character Ari Gold and brother to Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel). As the trades are reporting today, it’s a well-suited match: William Morris has cash from its lucrative music ventures and decades of TV packaging fees (The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Cosby Show) while Endeavor has the more impressive client roaster of Hollywood’s elite actors, writers, directors, and producers.

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I’m not sure how I feel about Hollywood’s grand night ’09. My director friend, Steph Green, nominated in the short film category, lost to a Holocaust film; Hugh “Wolverina” Jackman pranced in a top hat; and Tina Fey and Steve Martin made me laugh at Scientology. Slumdog’s win made America and India feel good, even though I like to call it City of God-light (there’s a heckuva movie), and Milk’s deserving wins in best original screenplay and best actor delivered some of the most notable acceptance speeches of the night. I’ll admit, I had tears in my eyes when Dustin Lance Black spoke of his long journey to the Kodak Theater.

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This year I have a dear friend nominated for an Academy Award. Director Steph Green and her film, New Boy, are up for an Oscar in the Live Action Short Film Category. Based on author Rodney Doyle’s short story, it’s an incredible eleven minutes, delivering both heart and humor as a young immigrant to Ireland enters his first day of school.

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I only have two resolutions in 2009:
1) Look more sporty
2) Be more thankful

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In the wake of Oprah Winfrey's announcement yesterday that she weighs 200 pounds, LA Log has found it necessary and fashionable to announce its weight. And we're quite shameless about our largeness because no one knows how to convert pounds to kilograms anyway.

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In an undramatic and unfunny marathon of Hollywood indulgence, the 60th Emmys demonstrated once again its need for government oversight.

Not even five hosts—Howie Mandel, Jeff Probst, Heidi Klum, Ryan Seacrest, and Tom Bergeron—from America’s hottest reality shows could inject some energy into the bankrupt night. What a bunch of buffoons. At a time when most Americans are losing their retirement, their homes, their future, the least our celebs can do is step up to the plate.

Our stars failed, and we were forced to turn to a Brit for a hearty laugh. Ricky Gervais, in the highlight of the evening, did a bit where he attempted to retrieve his Emmy from last year from Steve Carell. Steve wasn’t about to give it up. Check it out here.

Perhaps I’m being a little too hard on our American talent. Stephen Colbert’s latent likening of McCain to prunes and Obama to plums certainly delivered a chuckle that rang with truthiness.

Sadly though, Tina Fey’s acceptance speech for 30 Rock for best comedy of the year should have had more yuck but instead was ridden with Wall Streetian anxiety about the fate of her show.

At the end of thank you, just as the music began to usher her off stage, she quickly named all the places one could watch episodes of 30 Rock—from NBC’s website to hulu.com to United Airlines flights. The show’s viewership pales in comparison to other comedies, and clearly she’s worried NBC will lose its patience. It would be a real shame. The Los Angeles Times reported today that 30 Rock’s feat of sweeping best series, best actor, and best actress (both Fey and Alec Baldwin won) was only the eighth time in Emmy history—The Dick Van Dyke Show (1964, 1966), All in the Family (1972, 1978), The Waltons (1973), Hill Street Blues (1981), Picket Fences (1993).

It’s too late to save your investments, but not too late to save good television.

I implore you to watch 30 Rock, which starts its new season October 30th.

When I heard Moosenator Palin speak in the flesh two weeks ago at Xcel, I was touched by God.  If you don’t believe me, just listen to the rap I wrote for my Wasilla Woman. Clearly, I’m channeling my higher power as I mix these mad rhymes.

I’m not alone. Since Palin appeared on Grand Pappy McCain’s ticket, Hollywood has been moved to speak. Here are some examples . . .

—Tina Fey rejoined SNL on Saturday night for a frighteningly impressive Palin impersonation. “I can see Russia from my house.” Comic genius.

—People magazine posted Palin’s reaction to the skit: "She thought it was quite funny, particularly because she once dressed up as Tina Fey for Halloween," her spokesperson Tracey Schmitt said.

—Matt Damon likens Palin to a “bad Disney film” in this AP interview.

—Palin causes Lindsay Lohan to speak about something other than herself. 

—Robin Williams makes a funny Zamboni joke.

—And this comedian, Sara Benincasa of MTV, has taken Palin to task in an ambitious vlog.

I've never heard of Lisa Nova, but she's had more than a million YouTube hits on this video. I love the machine gun opening . . .

There's a very good chance I've screwed the pooch of my Hollywood dreams. A friend in Fox's reality programming department told me yesterday that a new reality show is airing on ABC this fall entitled, SuperManny . . . that's manny as in male nanny.

Last fall, a casting company approached me to be part of such a reality series. Here are my posts on the offer as well as some musings on my real-life manny experiences (I was a working manny for more than a year in the early aughts.). After initial consideration, I scoffed at the idea as it was only for "a major cable network." I'm clearly network material.

Alas, had I said yes, I could have been network.

I should note that SuperManny has not been green lit for a full series. According to the docs I've seen:

"ABC will air a SuperManny (male nanny) episode early in the fall run of SuperNanny (Fridays at 8pm) - as a back-door pilot for a possible spin-off later in the season."

This is just another example that the networks are sucking a dry well when it comes to reality show concepts. What more can be done?

Human Tetris, an import from Japan, hits Fox soon, wherein humans must make a bizarre shape with their bodies to pass through a slit in a moving wall. After this show airs, and once they've done the sexy bikini version, I think we will have reached the Zion of reality television.

Here are three reality show ideas I have. Take them, if you like, but please don't hold me responsible if they go to series:

So You Think You're a Hipster--a show that pits hipster against hipster in a search to find the coolest, skinny jean- and Member's Only Jacket-wearing American.

Biggest Loser-Type 2 Diabetes Edition--a show that pits obese Americans against each other to see who can get Type 2 Diabetes first. The winner gets a year supply of insulin. Great product placement tie-ins with fast food industry.

America's Next Top Self-Help Book Writer--twelve writers, each with a different absolutist, Holy-Grail-for-living philosophy, attempt to attract a national following with their charlatan prose. Hosted by Rick Warren.

Estelle Getty’s passing has made me yearn for a cold winter’s day and a root beer float.

True story: Long, long ago, in the suburb of Brooklyn Center, I used to sit on Grandma and Grandpa Anderson’s couch on Saturday night while Mom and Dad were out on the town, slurp some A&W, and watch Grandpa Bert chortle at snappy one-liners Getty delivered about Blanche Devereaux’s sex life.

Getty was a bridge to the generations. A vaudevillian act the whole family could enjoy.

Yes, Grandma Philly may have giggled most at Betty White's St. Olafisms, but Ms. Getty’s character, Sophia Petrillo, was the show’s anchor. With her old-country wisdom and take-no-prisoners ‘tude, she was the character all the players turned to in the final act for resolution, a lesson, a celebration of the golden years.

I was yet a teenager, so in the early run of the show, these were the girls with whom I spent my Saturday night. And I loved it. Not because of the story lines or characters (most of the jokes were lost on my virginal mind) but because of the experience of being crowded into a living room on a February night, enjoying dessert, and sharing a piece of pop culture with an older generation. That’s just cool.

In fact, since The Golden Girls went off the air in 1992, I don’t think a television show has come close to unifying the Greatest Generation with Gen Yers or Xers.

A true shame. Honestly.

When I was in college, I took a television marketing class (a prerequisite for all pre-med students), and the professor was convinced a Golden Girls-like show, showcasing older folks in a retirement community, was around the corner. It has never come. Networks are too afraid old people scare away audiences.

But, with the baby boomers starting to line up for their social security, I imagine it’s only a matter of time before they demand their own sitcom spotlighting their golden years.

I just don’t see most boomers enjoying the same self-effacing wit, wisdom, and wrinkles of Sophia—boomers are too worried about preserving their youth. But maybe that doesn’t matter as long as it puts two generations in front of the television together.