"Ryan Seacrest is known and loved by television audiences around the world," Fox alternative entertainment prexy Mike Darnell said. "His work on 'American Idol' is unparalleled in the industry. He's a consummate host of major live broadcast events and a proven talent who always makes it look easy, which makes him the perfect choice for this year's Emmy telecast."

"This year's show will be different in a number of ways," [executive producer Ken Ehrlich] said, calling the host "a perfect match for some of the innovative things we have planned."

With both Seacrest and Fox's Minister of Alternative Programming Evil on board, it seems all but inevitable that many of these "innovative things" will be borrowed from the Idol formula; the evening's most poignant moment will come when Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series loser Charlie Sheen, weeping uncontrollably after Simon Cowell's withering appraisal of his Two and Half Men Work ("Perhaps we'd finally see some chemistry if Jon Cryer were forced to wear a cheerleader outfit each week?"), regains his composure after Paula Abdul delivers an incomprehensible, five-minute soliloquy comparing the actor to a beautiful butterfly she may have hallucinated earlier that morning.

Bonus: A fan on an MSN Idol message board offers a producer's mock-up showing an early vision of how Seacrest and Cowell will make their grand entrance at the ceremony.

• Seacrest to host Emmys [Variety]

The “we’re all good friends” façade continues to crack on Wisteria Lane. As has been widely reported, Teri Hatcher failed to join her Desperate Housewives cast-mates in the Emmy Awards pressroom. And the previous night at L.A. Confidential’s party for cover girl Hatcher, Eva Longoria arrived late, and stood waiting, in full view at the end of the red carpet, until Teri had climbed into her car and driven off, before strolling in and posing for photos.

This ugliness can only—nay, it must—end in bloodshed. Our money's on Marcia Cross being the Last Housewife Standing. Something about her makes us feel like she's pretty handy with a shiv.

• Housewives' Emmy Snubs [Open All Night]
• Previously: Inside VPage: Piven Goes Rabbit Hunting [Defamer]

• Defamer’s Emmy Moments [Defamer]

With only about 500 people attending this event, it was a surprisingly casual affair — it afforded me the unique opportunity to confirm once and for all that Donald Trump’s hair actually does all connect up to somewhere on his skull, that The Wonder Years’ Danica McKellar (a.k.a. Winnie Cooper) gets asked two questions more than any other question by her fans (”Where’d your name come from?” and “How was working on The Wonder Years?”), that Access Hollywood’s Billy Bush does indeed wash his hands after going to the bathroom (thankfully), and that certain soap stars are very down to earth, very cool, and (I think) mannequins due to the perfectness of their skin…

I realized that some stars can’t get enough of the free lobster and shrimp like Scrubs‘ Donald Faison, others can’t get enough of the sweets like Law & Order’s S. Epatha Merkerson, and that people like Glenn Close and Marlon Wayans, despite their completely different careers, have entourages just as big and just as intimidating.

But at least the Saturday night pre-Emmy party afforded everyone the opportunity to become equals in a not-so-equal town. It was last night, at the Emmy’s where the true line between stars and not-so-stars suddenly became more than obvious.

Later, at the post-ceremony Governor's Ball, organizers literally stratify the guests, perching the non-stars high above their more celebrated colleagues below:

At the Governor’s Ball after the Emmy Awards (a smaller, catered dinner in another ballroom of the Shrine Auditorium) — the biggest stars are awarded the unique honor of getting to eat their dinners at tables on the main floor. But the smaller stars and those who make them stars (the creatives, the marketing/publicity, the financial and administrative personnel) are allowed to eat above them in a balcony section that looks down on the bright dinner tables below. There’s nothing more amusing (to me) than watching non-stars point out semi-stars who have been relegated to the balcony dinner tables versus the ones below. “He must not have good agents…” they say. “Well, nobody watches his show so, you know, it makes sense…”

It's crucial that Hollywood maintain its treasured caste system, but it sounds like the Emmys, basking in their lesser light, are a little more gentle about it than their big-screen brethren. At the Oscars' Governor's Ball, the second-tier guests are fattened up at troughs, then hunted and killed for sport by Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty, who have both become master marksmen with the crossbow.

• Emmy (Or, Um me?) [Words For My Enjoyment]
• Defamer’s Emmy Moments [Defamer]

[Photo: Reuters]

• Presenters Quentin Tarantino and Marg Helgenberger kiss [Reuters]

Above, an Emmy producer whispers into Jon Stewart's earpiece during the show's opening musical act: "Jon, baby, the camera's coming your way. Give me a mix of dread and total incomprehension as you realize you're watching Earth, Wind, and Fire sing 'September' with the lyrics modified to celebrate television—then, BAM! Here come the Black Eyed Peas, the hottest band for fifteen minutes of 2004. Perfect! You're a pro's pro, Jonny."

For the first time since Nicolette Sheridan, Marcia Cross, and Eva Longoria held down Teri Hatcher at the Desperate Housewives first season wrap party while Felicity Huffman gave her a Crazy-Glu Brazilian wax, all five Housewives appeared together at the same event. After Longoria mangled a self-conscious joke indicating that she wasn't nominated for an Emmy, Felicity Huffman interrupted her scripted banter to helpfully underscore Longoria's lack of comic chops thusly: "CLUNK!" They're going to have such a fun set this year!

Upper right: Sean Hayes pretends to sleep through the announcement of the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series award, demonstrating the subtle comic chops at play in a typical episode of Will & Grace. Bottom left: Entourage's Jeremy Piven steels himself against the buggery that his peers will deliver an instant later, when Brad Garrett wins for Everybody Loves Raymond. We're sure Piven drowned his misery in a couple of struggling actresses later that evening.

Donald Trump and Megan Mullally yelp their way through their "Emmy Idol" rendition of the Green Acres theme song. We're not sure how the Emmy people pulled this off, but blood poured from the speakers of our television after Trump crooned the first verse. A nice touch.

In a clip from The Tonight Show, Glenn Close deep-throats a water bottle. Not as sexy as it sounds, as Close was trying to force the blunt end of the bottle into her brain and end the suffering of listening to Jay Leno's voice at close range.

Everybody Loves Raymond's Doris Roberts celebrates her 34th consecutive Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series win by hiring two strong, young fellas* to tend to her every sexual whim.

[*Not pictured. The boys in the picture are her grandchildren. Get your minds out of the gutter, sickies!]

Ellen DeGeneres asks her producers to write a bit in which she might "accidentally" capture some women peeing on camera; producers oblige by having the host do a remote from the ladies room.

Winning an Emmy for writing in a comedy series, Arrested Development's Mitchell Hurwitz says what we're all thinking: "We'd be remiss if we didn't point out the fact that the Academy has twice rewarded us for something that you people won't watch."

CBS overlord Les Moonves applauds after listening to Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather's moving tribute to fallen colleague Peter Jennings, then wonders if he can get away with permanently replacing Rather on the nightly news with his talentless wife, Big Brother 6 host Julie Chen.

Moonves would approve as Conan O'Brien rips on NBC while presenting the award for best lead actress in a comedy series: "This category features five remarkable women, who all have something in common. Each in their own way has sent my network into the ratings toilet. By the way, NBC's season starts and ends tomorrow." Sing it, Conan.

Felicity Huffman wins the award, then hugs un-nominated co-stars Eva Longoria and Nicolette Sheridan, who do the best acting of their lives by looking as if they don't want to yank Huffman's hair until brain matters oozes out of her eye sockets. Longoria and Sheridan later draw straws to see who would get to defecate in Huffman's limo first.

James Spader wins his second award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, giving the best victory speech of the night: "So there I was at the Chateau with a 17-year-old Bobby Downey Jr. The three hookers had been dead for about fifteen minutes and Bobby was already tearing through their purses, convinced that they were lying when they said they didn't have any horse. For reasons that are still unclear to me, Bobby starts eating tubes of their lipstick. So I turn to Bobby and I say, 'How fucking crazy would it be if I won two Emmys in a row for the same character, but on different shows?' Bobby pauses, looks up at me, his mouth saturated red with drugstore lipstick, then cold cocks me with the rotary phone on the nightstand. I wake up five hours later in a jail cell. Hey, that's drugs."

Complete list of winners at Emmys.org.

• 'Lost,' 'Raymond' Named Top Shows at Emmys [AP}
• Previously: The Emmys: It's Garry Shandling's Show [Defamer]