Seth Meyers kept politics out of his Emmy opening monologue Monday night, but he aimed most of the jokes at the industry crowd, not audiences at home.
We’re in a gold-plated age of television, witness the crush of great shows up for Emmys. Meyers looked comfortable in his first Emmy hosting gig, but his material lacked a big laugh and relied heavily on jokes only industry observers would get.
He leaned on the show’s Monday night time slot–the event usually airs on Sunday nights–for the first batch of gags.
“Jokes are like nominees … they all can’t be winners,” he said, one of those practiced retorts that sounded hopelessly canned.
Meyers toasted the talented writers behind the best shows on television, but he lamented they’re sitting so far back in the theater they can’t hear his jokes.
He did tweak host network NBC a few times, stating the obvious about the current state of highbrow TV fare.
“HBO has 99 nominations, the most of any network … not be outdone, NBC is also a network,” he says.
Meyers couldn’t have known that Jimmy Kimmel would take the stage minutes later as part of a regularly scheduled appearance and crack better jokes in rat-a-tat tat fashion than the evening’s host.
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