The Emmys’ Opening Number Gave Us Drunk Karaoke at 2 a.m. Energy

Damn that television, what a bad picture!
Don’t get upset, it’s not a major disaster.
There’s nothing on tonight, he said, I don’t know what’s the matter!
Nothing’s ever on, she said, so I don’t know why you bother.

That’s a terrific song about the power of television (kudos if you know it by memory) that the Emmy Awards did not use to kick off its 2021 ceremony, instead riffing on the more mainstream “Just a Friend� by Biz Markie to unite the hundreds of nominees braving the pandemic to get some trophies. Host Cedric the Entertainer, Billy Porter, Jonathan Groff, and a radiant Rita Wilson all make karaoke appearances to sing about their love of TV, as does, amazingly, an ecstatic Michael Douglas, who’s enjoying the razzmatazz in the background with his wife Catherine Zeta-Jones. As M.C. Wilson raps:

Who knew they had so much TV?
This HBO Max I got for free.
And this rap wouldn’t be complete.
I need to give a shout out to Sesame Street.
So many characters I love, in fact.
That’s Bert and Ernie’s business, we don’t care about that.

You just know Chet Hanks is fuming that he wasn’t asked to be there.