Scott's World

HOLLYWOOD, July 22 (UPI) -- Like garrulous Rodney Dangerfield, the television

academy whines it don't get no respect.

The reason is clear: Its annual, over-publicized awards aren't worthy of much respect or note.

The Emmys are a yearly bore but funnier than Dangerfield and Michael Jackson combined.

The wobbly body of boobs who run the television academy assiduously singled out 23 nominations for excellence to "Six Feet Under," a new sitcom about the embalming business.

Funny?

Hilarious!

It pokes fun at death and the nut cases who profit by it.

The show must be especially merry for viewers who recently lost loved ones or who are facing the grim reaper themselves.

Not since "The Loved One," the 1965 movie satire on cemeteries and mortuaries, has dying provoked as many chortles from the living -- at least among academy couch potatoes.

"The Loved One" was hailed as "the movie with something to offend everyone," although it was funny to film audiences in 1965. Prophetically or otherwise, most of the cast of "The Loved One" -- an

Evelyn Waugh novel based on California's Forest Lawn cemetery -- have joined the ghostly host of the deceased:

Rod Steiger, Dana Andrews, Milton Berle, John Gielgud, Tab Hunter, Liberace, Roddy McDowall, Robert Morely and Lionel Stander.

"Six Feet Under" is not as funny nor as clever, but it collected no fewer than 23 (TWENTY THREE!) nominations for Emmys this week.

The previous record for nominations belongs to "The Sopranos" -- an inferior TV version of the movies' "Godfather" trio -- that garnered 22

nominations last year.

Perhaps next year TV's "Gone With The Goslings" (a knockoff of "Gone With The Wind" about the Civil War) might win 24 nominations.

Or maybe "A Beautiful Navel," starring Britney Spears and based on the movie "A Beautiful Mind," will garner 25 nominations in 2005.

The catastrophic Emmy awards are plagued by a profusion of nominations and awards.

Unlike the staid motion picture Oscars, with only 24 awards, TV's academy spews forth Emmys seemingly by the gazillions.

Rare is the television actor, producer, writer, gofer or janitor who doesn't have a trophy case laden with glittering Emmys.

They are strewn around town as if Beverly Hills were pelted by an atomic explosion in a confetti factory.

Oscar nominations for performers are limited to leading actors and supporting players: five best actors, five best actresses and five each for

best supporting players.

What appears to be half the Screen Actors Guild's 90,000 members are nominated for Emmys; an overstatement to be sure, but an appalling surfeit

all the same.

There are no fewer than 17 best performer categories among TV players, and shame on any SAG member who isn't nominated in at least one of them.

With five nominees in each of 17 categories, that means there are a total of 85 thespians in the running for the brass ring this fall when the Emmy

Awards are disgorged in televised ceremonies.

Even the new SAG awards don't hand out gilded statuettes to so many ham actors.

Among the most virulent of the developments is repetition.

For instance Kelsey Grammer, who plays the faltering fat-headed shrink/radio commentator on "Frasier," must have closets packed with Emmy

Awards, enough base metal to start a factory of his own.

The repetition is paralyzing.

Imagine if Russell Crowe and Julia Roberts were to win Oscars every year for the remainder of the 21st century.

What if Tiger Woods won every golf tournament from now until hell freezes over?

In the end, no one would give a damn. It would be like conceding one-foot putts in tournament after tournament until Tiger became a domestic tabby.

It's the same with Grammer, Ted Danson, Martin Sheen, Ray Romano, David Hyde Pierce and Bill Cosby.

These guys have collected more metal than a magnet at the exit portal of Bethlehem Steel.

On the distaff side: Sarah Jessica Parker, Jennifer Aniston, Debra Messing, Tyne Daly, Diana Rigg, Stockard Channing and Mary-Louise Parker.

One may only praise Allah or fickle providence that Jerry Seinfeld and his gang are no longer around. They were buried in Emmys.

How would it be if every year Jim Carrey, Will Smith, Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy and Billy Crystal were nominated for Oscars?

Perhaps the funniest thing about the annual Emmy nominations are ads taken by predatory talent agencies to congratulate their clients.

The trade paper Daily Variety reaped a financial bonanza from double-truck ads from networks and flesh-peddlers.

Creative Artists Agency's red pages congratulated 88 clients including the entire Ozzy Osbourne cast, Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks (producers), Robert

DeNiro, and director Robert Smigel.

And well they might. The agency percentages from these clients would turn around the stock market.