Birdie Bonus

Tonight's performance of Broadway's Bye Bye Birdie was sailing along well -- until, just a few numbers in, a panel came crashing down from the wall of the MacAfee living room set. The scene progressed, and as the next began, Conrad Birdie's screaming girl fans were forced to get in place to lament their idol's departure while Birdie's agent Albert Peterson sings "Put on a Happy Face." The problem was, the show's scenery appeared to be stuck, and the train station set had not rotated into place. And so, out popped Peterson -- aka the show's star, John Stamos. "Girls, I'll be right out to make you feel better," he ad libbed. "As soon as they fix this mess." The curtain came down -- and the best part of the show was about to start.

"I was just about to sing 'Happy Face,' and then this shit happens," Stamos mock complained. Then, as he vamped for time in front of the curtain, he first pointed out comedy legend Don Rickles in the audience. "These seats are terrible, and the show stinks!" Rickles yelled back from the orchestra.

As female audience members shouted out for Uncle Jesse, Stamos noted his Full House co-star Bob Saget, just a row behind Rickles and sitting with both family members and Paramount CEO Brad Grey. Saget initially just shouted back a hello, but as first Gina Gershon and then a clowning Bill Irwin came out to apprise us of the further delay, Stamos was able to lure Saget to jump up on stage with him and speak into his forehead mic. "You say this show opens tomorrow?" Saget was quick to joke.

And my favorite interchange of the evening: Stamos urged Gershon, "Come on -- do something from Showgirls." To which Gershon replied, "You know, I had never seen Full House before, and now I finally did -- the other day, at the dentist." Without skipping a beat, Stamos asked, "Which was more painful?"

So about those Emmys...

I'm not going to get into how much everyone's saying that, with some notable exceptions like Ricky Gervais and Don Rickles, the telecast sucked. Or how this 60th anniversary show, which should have been more celebratory about TV, notched the Emmys' lowest ratings in history -- even lower than the previous record-holding year, 1990.

What I want to ask is, did anyone else notice a disturbing misogynist note to the whole affair? First the script called for several males to rip the outfit off of their sole female cohost, Heidi Klum. Later in the evening, another bit called for poor Tom Bergeron, a genuine nice guy, to drop her to the floor. And then there was that moment -- again, pre-planned! -- with Craig Ferguson's hand supposedly on Brooke Shields' ass. (Have I missed any more?)

Did we really need to stoop to that? To take Brooke Shields, a smart, accomplished, beautiful woman on a hit show, and turn her into a 6-foot cheesecake model to be groped for a joke? Do we men, now that our economy is a mess and our banks are failing, suddenly need to reassert our "power" and dominance over our women to make ourselves feel better? And do it on national TV, as an example for the next generation?

All I can say is, thank god nobody trivialized or objectified my girl Tina Fey -- at least that I could see on camera. Nobody puts multiple-Emmy winning genius Tina in a corner!