Two of the five best shows on television (in my prestigious opinion) have snagged an incredibly high number of Emmy nominations. NBC’S 30 Rock and AMC’s Mad Men garnered 17 and 16 nominations, respectively. 30 Rock was no surprise – it’s one of only a handful of sitcoms left on the air – and one of less than a dozen that aren’t of the ABC/Disney Channel “family friendly” bland variety. The writing is consistently solid, and the jokes are starting to filter into the lexicon. I love 30 Rock so much I want to take it behind the middle school and get it pregnant.

Tina Fey’s 30 Rock is among the leaders at the 60th annual Primetime Emmy Awards, earning 17 nominations, including Outstanding Comedy Series, Outstanding Lead Actress (Fey) and Outstanding Lead Actor (Alec Baldwin).

AMC’s buzzed-about drama Mad Men nabbed 16 nominations, including Outstanding Drama Series, while ABC newcomer Pushing Daisies earned 12 nominations. The HBO historical drama John Adams earned the most nominations (23).

Despite the hubbub made Katherine Heigl’s decision to withdraw her nomination, Grey’s Anatomy received just five nods (it is not up for Outstanding Drama Series). Sandra Oh and Chandra Wilson each received nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actress In A Drama Series.

Desperate Housewives took home four nominations. Meanwhile, American Idol will face off against Project Runway, The Amazing Race, Top Chef and Dancing With The Stars for Outstanding Reality-competition Program.

[From Us Weekly]

The Emmys will air on September 21st. The relative snub towards Grey’s Anatomy is no surprise. Though I thought it was really ungracious of Katherine Heigl to say the things she said about the writers when she withdrew her name from the Emmy list, she was right. The show was horrible last season. It was pretty much unwatchable. And it wasn’t just due to the WGA strike. Anytime a show starts the season off with some lame storyline involving Heigl’s character trying to save a wounded deer – and ranting on in some unnatural, clichéd speech about why it’s important – it reeks of desperation and a complete lack of ideas.

Mad Men however, has got to be the absolute best drama on television (again in my less than humble opinion). I am constantly telling Celebitchy that she needs to stop taking care of her young child and family and prioritize by watching it. It’s a shame that it’s only on as a summer show. It’s nice to have something great to watch when the only new material is a bunch of reality crap, but the downside is that each season is only 13 episodes long. I’ve never been a fan of a single show put out by a cable network, but Mad Men is absolutely phenomenal. And needs better ratings. So this is essentially my plug to give it a shot so I don’t have to come up with something else to do on my Sunday nights.

Here’s a complete list of the 2008 Emmy nominees.

Lionel Richie was honored recently by the cable channel TV Land. Their annual Icon awards salute entertainers with longevity in the industry. Richie, whose daughter is reformed badgirl socialite and new mom Nicole Richie, made a little joke about what he says is the toughest job in the world: being a dad. Specifically, Nicole’s dad.

Grammy winner Lionel Richie was honored this weekend with an Icon trophy at the TV Land Awards, while accepting his award, the Oscar winner joked to the crowd about being Nicole Richie’s father.

“Forget about surviving 40 years in the music business. Just surviving 27 years of Nicole Richie has been a struggle and a half, I want to tell you. I stand here as a survivor, I want you to know, for all parents out there.”

Richie also added that since Nicole became a mommy she has become a different person,

“She went from Dad, I don’t care. Whatever you say, to ‘wash your hands, dad.’”

[From The Paparazzis]

I’m not a fan of Lionel’s music post-Commodores, but after seeing him with Nicole on “Oprah” a few years back, I like their relationship a lot. Nicole acknowledges that she was a wild-child hellian, and Lionel admits that he wasn’t always there for his daughter due to his career. They seem very close these days, and in every photo I’ve seen of Lionel with his new granddaughter he seems to be bursting with pride. It’s great that they can laugh about those tough times now.

Nicole, Lionel and Sophia Richie are shown at the ASCAP awards on 4/9/08, thanks to WENN.

The MTV Movie Awards were held yesterday, and true to form (at least for the last couple years) they were pretty dull. They’ve easily become what the Blockbuster Awards used to be. Back in the day, crazy stuff would happen whenever MTV held an awards show. But no one from Rage Against the Machine jumped onstage trying to climb the set, no audience fights broke out, and from all reports the most exciting thing was James Franco and Seth Rogan smoking “fake” pot on stage and telling kids not to ever smoke fake weed. Oh and there was a big fire at the Universal lot that closed down much of the area the morning before the awards. But by most accounts that likely had nothing to do with the fake pot. Likely.

The only thing hotter than the predawn blaze that closed down the area surrounding the Gibson Amphitheater before the 2008 MTV Movie Awards was double-threat Johnny Depp. The masses-approved heartthrob had to wait out a thundering standing ovation before being able to give thanks for his Best Comedic Performance win, his third Golden Popcorn to date for playing Captain Jack Sparrow. Depp-as-Sparrow missed out on a clean sweep of the Best Male Performance category, with that honor going this year to box office golden boy Will Smith for his isolationist turn in the sci-fi hit I Am Legend.

“I’ve dedicated my life to creating and trying to do things that are different,” Smith said. “I’ve dedicated my life to making everything that I touch better…This film was hard and I was on camera for an hour by myself and y’all still went to see it. Thank you very much.” The statue for Best Female Performance went to Juno It girl Ellen Page, who theoretically could be considered to be in the third trimester of her breakout year, now that it’s about time to stop honoring last year’s movies.

Tom Cruise was called upon to fete this year’s winner of the MTV Generation Award—”Falling in Love With Drew Barrymore Man,” “Yelling at Jack Nicholson Guy,” “Magic Remote Control Dude” Adam Sandler. “He liberated us form the presumption that it was not cool to punch old people…and he taught us how to celebrate Hanukkah by drinking gin-and-tonicas,” a straight-faced Cruise reminded us during the lengthy tribute.

[From E! News]

Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens took home awards for Best Breakthrough Performance for High School Musical. According to E!, the show was pretty inoffensive… but the way their article comes off, I think they’re actually politely trying to say it was pretty dull.

Mike Myers proved to be a largely inoffensive host, except for when he trotted out Dana Carvey for a Wayne’s World sketch.

“No Country for Old Balls” as the third-best porn title based on ‘07 films was admittedly pretty funny, but other than that, the skit was largely a tired riff on Tila Tequila’s bisexuality.

[From E! News]

Picture note by Celebitchy: Shown are Johnny Depp, Megan Fox, Zac Efron, Robert Downey Jr., Brendon Fraser, Liv Tyler and Ed Norton, Cam Gigandet, Sean Faris, Ellen Page, Mike Myers, Rumer Willis, Katherine McPhee, Lauren Conrad, Verne Troyer, Charlize Theron, Anne Hathaway, Paris Hilton, Benji Madden, Will Smith and his son Jaden, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Terri Seymour in an awful pantsuit.

If you have children, you were probably subjected to Nickelodeon’s 25th Annual Kid’s Choice Awards ceremony on Saturday night. You have my sincerest condolences. I, too, had to watch, and it was often eyeroll-inducing: lame banter between celebrity presenters; boring and unfunny “behind the scenes” skits; stupid slime stunts that dragged out the show even longer and wayyyy too much Disney product, in the form of Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers. Miley Cyrus won favorite female television star and favorite female musical artist, much to my daughter’s delight.

There were a few bright spots in the broadcast, including host Jack Black’s over-the-top opening musical number, in which he wore a bright green superhero costume and rocked out with a giant octopus playing guitar to the Kiss song “I Was Made for Loving You,” with the lyrics changed to “I Was Made for Sliming You.” (In my opinion, Black was the only funny, high-energy part of the show and should have been allowed to riff and get crazy even more.) The theme of each Kids’ Choice Awards, you see, is that celebs and kids in the audience get buckets of green slime poured on their heads at random moments. Slimed celebs included Harrison Ford, who recreated a famous scene from “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” which concluded with him being covered in green slime. Other mildly amusing segments included a celebrity belching contest that featured Jodie Foster attempting to burp along to the song “YMCA.”

All in all, the show had the same problems as most other awards shows: it went on too long, there was too much unfunny dialog, and the host didn’t get enough chances to do what he does best. But if you are at all interested in the winners, here they are.

Favorite TV Show: Drake and Josh
Favorite Reality Show: American Idol
Favorite TV Actor: Drake Bell (from Drake and Josh)
Favorite TV Actress: Miley Cyrus
Favorite Cartoon: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Favorite Movie: Alvin and the Chipmunks
Favorite Movie Actor: Johnny Depp
Favorite Movie Actress: Jessica Alba
Favorite Animated Movie: Ratatouille
Favorite Animated Voice: Eddie Murphy (Shrek The Third)
Favorite Music Group: The Jonas Brothers
Favorite Song: “Girlfriend” by Avril Lavigne
Favorite Female Singer: Miley Cyrus
Favorite Male Singer: Chris Brown
Favorite Male Athlete: Tony Hawk
Favorite Female Athlete: Danica Patrick
Favorite Book: Harry Potter Series
Favorite Video Game: Madden NFL 2008
Wannabe Award: Cameron Diaz

If anything, the Kids’ Choice Awards gives parents a glimpse into the music, movies, and other pop culture their kids like– which should scare the crap out of you. I know I had a hard time sleeping knowing that the youth of America wants to be just like Cameron Diaz.

In more Gary Busey Oscars awesomeness, a video clip has surfaced of the actor being interviewed on the red carpet by an 11-year-old girl from the celebrity web site Starzlife. The young reporter has to ask her question a few times because Gary can’t hear her. But his response to her question about young stars getting in trouble with the law is extra-awesome.

“Guess what? They’re not celebrities. They’re idiots; they’re losers. Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan–they are all children of God, but they need to wake up and understand that they have a responsibility to the people who admire them and look at them to be better behaved, and have better….feelings about life and those charities that Paris talked about? She’s done nothing. She’s a liar. She’s a pathological liar, in terms of what the heck she said on Larry King, and what she doesn’t do after she says it. That’s a shameful thing to do, and it’ll bite her in the butt when it comes around.”

[Transcribed from Gary Busey interview]

Gary surprised Jennifer Garner, Ryan Seacrest and Laura Linney with an unexpected accosting of Jen Garner’s neck during the red carpet walk on Sunday night. He then called into Ryan’s radio show the next morning, calling Seacrest the “innocent champion of honesty.”

While Gary has never been in trouble with the law– at least, there is no mugshot or police report anywhere– the actor did sustain massive head trauma after a motorcycle accident in which he was not wearing a helmet. Since that near death experience, the eccentric actor has become a born-again Christian and briefly was the star of his own, bizarre reality show, “I’m With Busey.”

Vanity Fair canceled their Oscar party a month ago. This was a huge deal in Hollywood, as that party was THE party of the Oscars. It was very “seen and be seen.” Say that in a snooty voice and you get the picture. If you spent too much time at any other party, you weren’t someone to be bothered with. Vanity Fair did this for two reasons, one official, and one not so much. The official spiel was that they were doing it in solidarity with the (then) striking writers. The unofficial reason was that everyone assumed the Oscars would either be canceled, announced in a press conference format, or held in the usual way but without writers so it would really, really suck. And though the writers are back, the party is still canceled. So what will our dear celebs do to keep themselves entertained and pleasantly drunk? Well luckily Madonna and Prince are hosting competing parties that are supposedly very A-list. Talk about a battle of the divas.

One contender to fill this black-tie social vacuum is the party Madonna, her manager Guy Oseary and Demi Moore have put together at the last minute.

Whether this affair becomes an annual event hasn’t been decided.

The party, to be held in a home in the Westside hills, will begin around 9 p.m. A few hundred people are invited, although this number will probably expand. One person who’s seen the guest list said, “Everybody’s on it. It gives the A-list Vanity Fair crowd someplace to go to. It will probably be pared down to where it’s 85% talent, not a lot of suits.”

But even if this party skims off some of the celebrity cream, the Governors Ball will still be the major draw. “It’s the biggest game in town,” said one exec. “This is going to put the glamour back into the ball.”

[From Variety]

But just in case you’re not a fan of Madonna or Demi, there’s always Prince’s backup party. Though something tells me if you don’t like Madge, you probably don’t like Prince either. No word on the dress for the event, though I’m guessing it’s something hokey like “Purple Tie.”

The diminutive divo has quietly cornered the market on exclusive awards parties. One source familiar with the RSVP list says names include “Katie and Tom, Will Smith, Salma and Penelope.”

While previous parties have been held in hotel suites, this year’s will take place at Prince’s new home in Benedict Canyon. But not everyone has scored a golden ticket.

Leven Rambin gushed at the W magazine party at Sunset Tower that she had just been invited. (And for more on her controversial new role in “Lipstick Jungle,” check out my Oscars blog.)

But across town at the Beverly Hills Hotel, where Academy Award nominee Ruby Dee was being honored by Black Enterprise magazine, the party was news to her.

[From Gatecrasher]

Oooohh, the drama! How can everyone’s party really be the most exclusive? Everyone claims they’re only inviting the A-list, yet there’s hundreds of people coming – they can’t all be A. Somehow Tara Reid always ends up at one of those things, which instantly demotes the whole fiesta down to C-list. In other (happy) Oscar news, Paris Hilton has been banned this year, as confirmed by multiple media outlets. Supposedly she “cried hot, salty tears” according to an oft-quoted source. Doesn’t that just make you feel like all is right with the world?

It appears that the year-long battle of creative differences between legendary producer Clive Davis and American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson is diffusing. Clarkson, who has been quite vocal over her disagreement with Davis regarding her album, “My December,” has been added to the bill of select performers for Davis’ prestigious pre-Grammy bash.

Kelly Clarkson had a bad year last year, you may recall. Her album, called “My December,” was a dud. But before it was released, she wound up in an unfortunate war of words with legendary J Records label chief Clive Davis, who’s also the head of BMG North America.

But time heals all wounds. The magnanimous Davis has held out a very key olive branch to Clarkson by including her photo among just a few select acts in the glittery invite to his annual pre-Grammy dinner gala.

The swanky black and gold square-shaped invitation has four pages of past dinner performers. The book opens with Alicia Keys, and continues with such Davis stalwarts as Whitney Houston, Rod Stewart, Annie Lennox, Barry Manilow, Fantasia and Jennifer Hudson.

But it’s the fourth page that’s most interesting. Diana Ross in the upper left hand corner. Rob Thomas and Carlos Santana are next to her. Below that pair is Clarkson, by herself. And to Clarkson’s left is the duo of Usher and Kanye West.

[From Fox News]

Sharing the same bill with Barry Manilow, Whitney Houston and Diana Ross is a sign of being accepted back into the fold? No wonder the music industry is in trouble.

Davis reportedly held the release of Clarkson’s album because he felt that that the material, which she wrote herself following a bad breakup and some bad experiences during her “Breakaway” tour, was too dark and not pop enough. Clarkson shot back with the infamous reply, “You don’t have to like my album. You’re 80– you’re not supposed to like my album.” Some felt that Clarkson was shunned by Davis during his appearance on the finale show of American Idol season 6, when he proceeded to promote other Idol contestant’s current singles or albums, but failed to mention Clarkson’s album, or its first single, “Never Again.”

While “My December” didn’t live up to the expectations set by her previous album, it wasn’t exactly a flop, either. The album received mixed reviews and debuted at #2 in the U.S., with sales of approximately 291,000 copies - a mere 6,000 copies less than Clarkson’s debut hit “Thankful” sold in its first week. It came behind “Hannah Montana 2: Meet Miley Cyrus,” which sold about 326,000 copies that week.

Hopefully, Davis and Clarkson can renew their relationship and get back to making music. Kelly deserves kudos for standing her ground — even at the risk of selling fewer albums and canceling a few tour dates. Clive’s label has supported Alicia Keys in her quest to take more creative control, so why should Kelly be penalized for trying to do the same thing?

The award show second only to the Oscars has been axed. Of course celebs will still get their ego stroking in the form of the a golden trophy. Instead of a glitzy affair with a red carpet and more hair extensions than Britney’s closet can hold, a simple announcement of winners will be made. The unofficial word is that the entire event has been canceled.

“The Golden Globes telecast, Hollywood’s biggest party of the year, has been canceled, reports DeadlineHollywoodDaily.com, after weeks of bitter acrimony between striking writers, Globes organizers the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and broadcast partner NBC.”

[MTV]

This Sunday should have been a big night for NBC. The network had exclusive right to the award show and would have raked in big advertising dollars. But with the Writers Guild of America still striking the awards could not go on. Writers threatened to picket the live telecast of the awards and the red carpet arrivals. Celebrity boycotts followed their picket threats with support from the Screen Actors Guild.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association asked NBC to take the show off the air. With celebs refusing to cross the picket line and the lack of a red carpet what will there be to air anyway? A press release with the winners is expected to be the humble way in which winners will be announced.

“A stripped down announcements telecast will be aired by NBC News. It will consist of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association handing out Golden Globes to the winners, who will then pick up the awards and pass through a press room for photos and interviews.”

I can just see tumbleweeds rolling along the carpet and Ryan Seacrest standing there smoking a cig waiting for something to do. He would probably bitch to the camera man about how it took him an hour to get his hair just right. It’s a sad day.

Note by Celebitchy: Pictures are from last year’s Golden Globes. Also, poor Rumer Willis will get stiffed out of her chance at being “Miss Golden Globe” and getting to hand out the stature.

The writer’s strike is at an impasse, with studios and the union unable to negotiate a fair settlement for Internet airings of television shows and movies. There was a rumor that talks should be resolved by Christmas, but this was an incorrect story and/or an overly positive one, because the talks have stalled and the latest news is that both sides are nowhere near a compromise. This means that the upcoming awards shows like The Oscars and Golden Globes are likely to be scrapped as many high-profile celebrities will refuse to cross picket lines and most everyone else will follow suit.

The Golden Globes are most likely to go if the strike is still on as they’re scheduled for January 13th. If the strike is still not settled by February 24, the air date for the Oscars, the Oscars won’t be happening this year either:

“Golden Globes? Not happening. Oscars? Not happening.”

That’s the word — or the words — from a Writers Guild insider who knows the score concerning the long-running strike against the studios.

The Guild will, without a doubt, picket the Golden Globes on Jan. 13, my source says. This person knows the business. The Guild also will picket the Oscars, the Spirit Awards and, presumably, the Grammys. They’ll also picket shows such as the People’s Choice Awards.

So far, the WGA has been very effective with picket lines — far more so probably than the studios ever expected. Hollywood already is shut down because of picket lines.

Interestingly, Variety — “the bible” of show business — is taking a subtle pro-studio stand on the strike.

Tuesday night, the publication’s story indicating a Golden Globe picket line made it seem like the physical picketers would be so far from the Hilton that no one would care. Alas, a modern picket line is as virtual as anything else in 2008. If the Writers Guild says it’s boycotting the Globes, its members, and members of other guilds, are highly unlikely to attend.

It’s not just that the Guild turned down requests for waivers from the Hollywood Foreign Press (the Globes, Jan. 13) and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Oscars, Feb. 24). That happened on Monday.

According to this high-level source, the Guild will not negotiate a separate deal with Dick Clark Productions, the company that produces the Globes show for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and NBC.

Instead, the Guild will picket the show. And if the strike is still on when Feb. 24 rolls around, the Guild will picket the Oscars, too.

And this means that millions of dollars in advertising spent by the networks and the movie studios will go down the drain. So far, the Hollywood Foreign Press has pretended as if this weren’t happening. But it is.

Jan. 13 is less than a month away. A picket line around the Beverly Hilton Hotel means that big stars like George Clooney and Steven Spielberg will stay away. It’s that simple. And once they’ve announced their intentions not to cross, the rest will follow.

[From Foxnews.com]

I wonder if they’ll carry on with the shows with whomever will attend or if they’ll be scrapped entirely. From the way this story is worded, it sounds like The Golden Globes will probably not happen at all and that the Oscars are at risk depending on how quickly the strike can be settled. The only reason I watch the shows is to see what the stars are wearing as I find the ceremonies incredibly boring, although last year’s Oscars weren’t bad. I can’t say I’ll miss either of those shows and to me it’s more about the effects of the strike on tv and movies.

I live overseas and unfortunately can’t watch US television until the older episodes are shown over here, but ironically I finally scored an invite to Hulu.com, which offers real streaming current TV shows legally on demand. Hulu is put out by NBC and has lots of current shows from NBC, Fox, Bravo, and FX, among others. 30 second commercials are shown in place of full commercial breaks. This is the type of content that the writers want to be paid for, but the studios are holding their ground.

The FoxNews article points out that the studios want to pay the writers almost nothing for Internet broadcasts of their shows. They also say it would cost $150 million for the studios to settle the strike with the Writer’s Guild, which is the cost of one medium budget flop. Instead of giving writers a fair share, they’re refusing to consider the offer. The result will be much more expensive for them as very little content is created for next year and advertising revenue and viewership goes way, way down.

Update: The Peoples’ Choice Awards have been all but canceled, with no press allowed and no red carpet. The event will air partially on CBS on January 8th, most likely to announce the winners.

Tom Cruise was presented the “courage” award at Germany’s Bambi Awards, their equivalent of the Oscars. The Bambis are drier than the Oscars, but aren’t as long and also include fashion and music awards. This year the musical acts included Rihanna and Bon Jovi and American celebrities in attendance were Cruise and Katie Holmes, Sharon Stone and Eva Longoria. Sofia Loren was also honored for her life’s work.

I just watched Cruise’s acceptance speech and he rambled on for more than five minutes. He was given the award after a long montage was shown featuring practically every movie he’s ever appeared in, so maybe he was feeling particularly nostalgic. Even though I didn’t understand all of it I was starting to feel embarrassed for him.

Cruise’s speech was dubbed over in German, which I usually understand in context, but it was hard to follow. I bugged the shit out of my husband to translate it for me, and he kept saying he couldn’t directly translate it and that Cruise was like a preacher who was just rambling on. Cruise talked about how gracious and welcoming the German people had been to him while he was filming Valkyrie, and he then spoke about his meager childhood and about he moved around a lot with his mom while he was growing up. Then he launched into this long diatribe about following your dreams or something. Every time you thought he was over he wasn’t and he would just keep rambling on. At one point the audience clapped and he should have taken his leave, but instead he stayed at the podium to go on at least twice as long. The camera panned to the audience quite a few times and the attendees looked bored and perplexed as he just went on and on.

When Cruise returned to his seat, Katie Holmes smiled slightly and looked down, you could totally tell that she was embarrassed by how effusive he was. I love the German people too, I married one, but there’s no reason to go on and on about it and philosophize without end at an awards show.

I’m not home at the moment, we’re moving and are at a hotel, or I would have taped this and put it up. As soon as it’s available online I’ll post the video here. It was truly incredible how long Cruise spoke.

Thanks to WENN for the pictures of Tom and Kate at the Bambis. Also does Katie look pregnant or is her stomach just sticking out? Either way, that’s not a flattering dress, but at least her new hair detracts from it.