The Emmys are on Monday and it’s always a good show, right? It’s not as loose as the Globes, but the TV stars aren’t hidden in the back for that long, sheepish walk up to the podium. For one night, they are all George Clooney.
To create some buzz, the Television Academy released Barely Legal Pawn, a spoof reality show starring Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Three Emmy winners, all nominated again this year. Bryan and Aaron play pawnshop owners with a secret back-door business and Julia plays herself. Obviously it’s a take on all those shows about people who buy other peoples’ junk, but there are winks to success, fame and status (like Aaron and Julia asserting that a supporting actor is just as important as a lead actor). It’s charming, it’s fun, it’s PG – everything the Emmys want to be.
Julia is, of course, on point. She has the most natural comic timing, I swear when I watch a Seinfeld rerun it looks like everyone is straining in the face of her effortless delivery. She’s a marvel and no matter how many awards she wins I will forever consider her underrated.
And the boys – how can you not miss them?! My favourite thing about this is that there’s no agenda behind it. The votes are in so this isn’t campaigning. It’s just fun, you know? And sometimes, when a great show ends, the cast disperses and is never ever seen together again. And you realize they probably didn’t have as much fun working together as you think they did. They might have even secretly hated each other (maybe being stuck on an island will do that to a cast).
Bryan and Aaron weren’t forced into filming this; they probably liked the idea and just wanted to hang for an afternoon. Both have taken on new projects, obviously, but there is no huffing about wanting to move on from the series that made them household names. Sure, Aaron is taking a crack at being a movie star, but he’s not being all Katherine Heigl about it. When I see this, I can assume they miss working together. So it’s ok for my pathetic inner fangirl to miss them too.
