Saturday night the 24th annual TCA Awards were presented at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif., and I was lucky enough to find a seat in the back row (OK, that’s probably because I spent too long trying to figure out what to order at the bar.) Guess who else was in attendance?
AfterEllen.com Hottie No. 1, Tina Fey.
Knowing that AfterEllen.com readers would never forgive me if I didn’t attempt to make contact with Ms. Fey somehow, I got there early and kept a lookout, foregoing many of the tempting hors d’oeuvres available (although I did quickly eat a bunch of dim sum) so that my mouth wouldn’t be full if I had the chance to shout out “Tina! Over here!”
It seems that my Tina Fey Sensors were on High Alert, because while I was talking to my compatriot Michael Jensen, the editor of AfterElton.com, I spotted Tina out of the corner of my eye. I dropped the conversation in mid-sentence and zoomed over to her, rudely interrupting her conversation with whomever she was talking to and said, “Hi, I’m from AfterEllen! We’d love to talk with you sometime!”
I think Tina might have been a bit startled, but she did say “Thank you for all your support,” and she shook my hand. Yes, folks, I shook the hand that wrote the script that brought Liz Lemon into life.
Unfortunately, Tina then had to rush off to prepare for her acceptance speech, and later on her publicist informed me that she wasn’t giving any interviews that night, so thus ended that attempt to talk to Tina Fey about sensible shoes, working as a comedy writer, and being lusted after by thousands of well-informed and particularly attractive lesbian/bi viewers.
Don’t worry, my attempt to land an interview with Tina continues, but meanwhile, this post is about the TCA Awards, so I’ll give you the highlights.
AMC’s Mad Men won several awards, including Program of the Year, Outstanding New Program and Outstanding Achievement in Drama. I am a big fan of this series and it was fun to spot Don Draper (Jon Hamm) and Roger Sterling (John Slattery) drinking actual drinks in the Beverly Hilton ballroom, but I’m sure you’re more interested in the ladies of Mad Men, who certainly hold their own on the show.
Yes, they really look that good in person.
Obviously the awards I was most cheering for Saturday night were the two awards presented to Tina Fey. The first was Outstanding Individual Achievement in Comedy, in which she was nominated along with Christina Applegate (Samantha Who?), Alec Baldwin (30 Rock), Stephen Colbert (The Colbert Report) and Ray Wise (Reaper). Here’s what Ms. Fey said when she accepted that award:
I want to thank everyone involved in the Television Critics Association, not just for this award but for your very very generous support of 30 Rock. … Thank you to you guys for making 30 Rock the most successful cable show on broadcast television. [laughter] Oh, it’s a great time to be on broadcast television, isn’t it? It’s exciting! It’s like being in vaudeville in the ’60s! [laughter] We’re thinking of actually changing the name of the show to Ratings-Challenged 30 Rock, just to take some of the power out of it. It’s like taking back the N-word; we’re gonna do it. It might make Elisabeth Hasselbeck cry, but we’re gonna do it. [laughter]
But in spite of the weird state of our industry, there are some amazing things going on on television right now, which is why I feel very honored to be in this category with Christina and Alec and Stephen Colbert and Mr. Wise, who I don’t know personally but who is amazing. Also I find it — I have to say I find it very exciting that at these awards, this category is not separated by gender. Because it doesn’t really need to be. It’s not weight-lifting. [laughter] You know what else is? Uh, professional billiards. [laughter] Why is that, uh, separated? [laughs]
Good point, Tina! She also accepted the award for 30 Rock, which won Outstanding Achievement in Comedy.
The other highlight of the evening for me was almost running smack into Tom Hanks, who was there to accept the award for Outstanding Achievement in Movies, Mini-Series & Specials, given to HBO miniseries John Adams, which Hanks executive produced. Luckily I stopped just before I smashed my face into his back. Although that might have made a good story. Maybe Tina Fey would have seen it, cracked up, and decided right then and there to give an interview to this super-clumsy reporter!
Well, a girl can dream. Congrats, Tina Fey! (See all the award winners here.)
