Enough With The Awards Shows!

I Liked It Better When There Were Just the Oscars, the Emmys, the Grammys, the Tonys, and Maybe the Golden Globes

I liked it better when there were just the Oscars (a.k.a., the AcademyAwards distributed to feature films), the Emmys (for television), the Grammys (music), the Tonys (Broadway) and maybe the Golden Globes (a smorgasbord of entertainment categories).

I say “maybe,” with regard to the Globes because, back in the day, when I was growing up in the 1960s and the 1970s, no one really knew what they were or where to find them because the show was usually telecast on some obscure syndicated TV channel at some obscure late-night time slot, sometimes at late or as early as 3:00 in the morning.

Strange as it seems during that era of obscure Golden Globes screenings, that’s also when award shows used to mean something; when they would be held, hosted and subsequently aired for all right reasons and fun entertainment purposes that they were usually intended. For the mainstream viewers to see, be aghast with, or joke about; so that audiences could watch, be shocked by, and smile at what they saw and heard because they were given a chance to do so, with room and at least a few months to breathe before the next award show would come along.

Like any good thing, it was all done in moderation.

Way, way back in the day, before television became the thoughtless, selfish child of radio and motion pictures, the first round of Academy Awards were distributed in some elegant hotel or facility in Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, or the like, by sophisticated movie stars (like Clark Gable, Kathryn Hepburn, and the like) dressed to the nines (and tens!), which allowed them I guess to at least be perceived as sophisticated.

Today, we have shows like The CW Dog Honors, which said-network-in-the-title recently aired and was hosted by Mario Lopez. I’m no canine-hater, and certainly, Mario Lopez is no dog (God bless ‘em), but come on, man — really? An award show for dogs? Ok, celebrities and their dogs? But still? Really?! Seriously??!!

It’s bad enough that we have to watch, as Ellen DeGeneres so pristinely mused a few years back (while hosting the Emmy telecast), a bunch of millionaire celebrities giving each other awards. But now the genre has…