Home Box Office may have made the biggest cable splash at the Emmy Awards,
but MSO Adelphia Communications Corp. made its own mark, if an ignominious
one.
The Emmy nominees list for variety programs -- The Late Show with David
Letterman, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, etc. -- can often extend
further than a stretch limo, given that they frequently have a large stable of
writers to credit.
As a result, those shows -- the stock and trade of which is off-the-wall
comedy -- sometimes try to liven up the process.
At Sunday night's Emmy Awards ceremony, that creative listing included
various poseable plastic figures identified as nominees and a staff of writers
(identified with graphics) being browbeaten in a writers meeting by a tyrannical
boss (Emmy host Conan O'Brien, actually).
Then there was The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, which saw its staff's
names ticked off while pictures of various testifying and fifth amendment-taking
executive types -- Enron Corp.'s Ken Lay, for one -- were flashed.
For Stewart's own name, the fallen titan of choice was Adelphia founder John
Rigas being led away in handcuffs.
