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Couch Potato: Host won’t match Emmys’ variety

The busy little bees of TV Land are buzzing more loudly than usual lately as they prepare for the Emmys, watch a Neilson record be smashed and move a budding starlet into more luminous surroundings.

For this year’s annual awards program for television, it just makes sense that the ubiquitous Ryan Seacrest would be tapped to host. After all, he does host the perennially successful American Idol, E! News and even sometimes for Larry King Live. The suits say that he appeals to a broad audience, but it may have something to do with the FOX network airing the program this year.

For those who haven’t heard, the nominations for the Emmys have been released. As always, some favorites didn’t make the cut while Grade-A baloney masquerades as something other than processed rubbish, et al.

Some of the more surprising, though not necessarily unworthy, candidates include an episode of Nickelodeon’s Spongebob Squarepants for Outstanding Animated Program, Showtime’s Weeds for Outstanding Casting for a Comedy Series and The History Channel’s Star Wars: The Legacy Revealed.

Of course we are going to see Grey’s Anatomy. Of course we are going to see PBS’s Jane Eyre, Animal Planet’s Meerkat Manor, Showtime’s The American Life, HBO’s When the Levee’s Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts and many, many more.

With this kind of variety in television, there is no reason that something you love can’t take home some gold. Put off your homework or call in sick and fall in love with television all over again. It’s sure to be as expansive and diverse as it is glorious and cheesy. The 59th Primetime Emmy Awards will broadcast at 7 p.m. Sept. 16 on FOX.

Tariffs to testosterone

Not since CNN aired the 1993 NAFTA debate have so many TV sets been tuned to one channel at the same time. The Disney Channel took the cake with its Friday airing of the tween phenomenon High School Musical 2, which drew in 17.2 million viewers.

Maybe now that puppy love is more important than international trade agreements, The Disney Channel can relax its strangle hold on the nation’s youth and give parents back their sanity. But it probably won’t.

Super spy to super hero?

Fans who are still mopey from the cancellation of underground hit Veronica Mars will be either very happy or very upset by the following: Kristen Bell will briefly join the cast of Heroes in a role of dubious integrity and honor.

Of course, if they don’t, there will be plenty more opportunities to catch up with the former smart and sassy private eye as she has become hot property in Hollywood in the wake of her sudden, um, availability.

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