Entertainment

Award shows can't be all that entertaining. They're too long, too full of inherently dead moments, too self-congratulatory. Maybe the results should just be conveyed like ball scores on ESPN – a screen crawl under a program people actually want to watch.

Sunday night, host Conan O'Brien did what he could to animate The 58th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards, with a little help from his comedy friends. The best jokes were at the expense of award shows, making for a very meta evening.

The inevitable opening parody, which inserted the host into several popular TV series, was mostly a winner, and he got off a bunch of funny one-liners during the opening monologue.

Tickling non sequitur: "Welcome to the 58th and final Emmy Awards." If only. Self-deprecating to a fault, he also offered: "It's my second time hosting, and as you'll see tonight the third time is the charm."

He went on to tweak Mel Gibson (joking that the troubled actor-director is doing a series for Al Jazeera), explained how the mobsters on The Sopranos knew Vito was gay ("When he was around, the crime was really organized") and had his way with the IRS plan to tax Emmy gift bags ("The Bush administration keeps sticking it to the working man").

Then Mr. O'Brien performed a song parody that stuck it to his employer, NBC, for its fall from first to fourth place in the ratings.

Self-conscious about the rap on award shows, he regularly returned to goose the proceedings for their boring nature, including a running gag that had Bob Newhart locked in a glass booth with only three hours of air. The Emmys had to finish on time or the comic would die.

Blythe Danner was among a few winners who didn't heed the warning. Accepting her Emmy for supporting actress in a drama for Huff, she talked right through the play-off music.

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert also did their part. "Good evening, godless sodomites," Mr. Colbert said, staying in his Hollywood-hating Colbert Report character. "Award show banter is not pablum," Mr. Stewart shot back before moving on to pablumlike award show banter.

Mr. O'Brien's efforts extended to the funny video that comedy-variety nominees always make to introduce their writers. His Late Night team nailed it this year: They subbed the staff with what looked like a group of Indian telemarketers at a call center.

He also asked that winners skip thanking their parents. If they had been properly raised, he said, they wouldn't have wound up in show business. He was roundly ignored.

Mr. Newhart survived. About 10 minutes before the Emmys ended at exactly 10 p.m. Dallas time, he was freed from his chamber to give out – yes – another award.

E-mail mmendoza@dallasnews.com