behind the news

NBC Crashes and Burns in Emmy Sketch

Some bloggers reacted angrily to an Emmy sketch last night, some not at all ...
August 28, 2006

A plane crashes on Sunday morning in Kentucky, killing 49, and the blogopshere erupts in anger at Conan O’Brien and the insensitivity of NBC. What’s the connection? See, on the same day as the fatal accident, the Emmys, hosted by O’Brien, opened with a sketch in which the goofy presenter is flying aboard a plane that starts to violently shake and then, yes, crash. (You can watch the video of the Emmy skit here.)

Nikki Finke over at her LA Weekly blog, Deadline Hollywood Daily, captures the dominant tone: “The very idea that tonight’s Emmy showcast on NBC was so scripted-in-stone that neither the network nor host Conan O’Brien could change a word of the broadcast opener, or decide not to show it altogether and substitute another skit crafted at the last minute, is absurd. After all, isn’t that the reason Hollywood pays writers for these awards shows?”

The general manager of the local Lexington affiliate agreed, saying that the decision to air the skit was “somewhere between ignorance and incompetence.”

Not everyone, however, is on the same page here. “Personally, I think it’s a bit silly to get worked up about this,” says Rob at Say Anything. “Yeah, the timing was unfortunate, but as tragic as what happened in Kentucky is plane crashes happen all the time. It wasn’t like the folks at the Emmys were trying to mock what happened in Kentucky, and any subsequent outrage over this skit from those involved with that crash in Kentucky is going to seem a bit contrived to me.”

David Weigel, filling in at Andrew Sullivan’s blog, also writes that he “just can’t muster up the mandatory outrage” over the affair. “I completely understand how Kentucky viewers were shocked by this, as the Emmys began right after a local update on the crash. But hectoring NBC for insufficient pandering to tragedy seems a mighty lame tribute to 49 people.”

But as we all know, the blogosphere is rarely in agreement with itself about anything, so it’s no surprise that some bloggers saw the sketch a different way — as an example of blue state prejudice at work.

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Ian at Hot Air wonders, “if the Comair crash had happened on the Left Coast, would NBC have gone through with the skit?”

Nothing, in fact, seems to escape the eagle eyes and bat ears of right-wing bloggers looking to pick a fight. Another comment by Conan, upon introducing Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, also got picked apart.

Conan introduced the duo by saying that “these two presenters have done for fake news what the Fox News Channel has done for fake news.” In a post titled, “Conan Slams Fox News at the Emmys,” Greg Tinti responded with this: “I usually wouldn’t make a big deal out of something like this, but today’s just the wrong day for the gratuitous slam of Fox News as ‘fake news.’ You know, because two of its journalists were just freed from the very real experience of being kidnapped while on the job and then held hostage for 13 days.”

Personally, we were offended by Conan’s red hair. Does anything say pinko more than that mane?

Gal Beckerman is a former staff writer at CJR and a writer and editor for the New York Times Book Review.