'Sopranos' Mobbed With Emmy Nods

When it hired Silverman, NBC traded in Entertainment President Kevin Reilly, whose programming choices landed the network those 69 nominations -- a whopping 22 more than last year, by far the biggest year-to-year improvement of any network. It would appear the TV academy is more impressed with Reilly than NBC was.

* * *

Back in Beverly Hills at Summer TV Press Tour 2007, CBS handed out bags of peanuts for its Q&A session on returning series "Jericho."

The end-is-near drama about residents of a cloyingly quaint Kansas town after a nuclear mushroom cloud appears on the horizon did not get a pickup for a second season. When fans found out in May, they sprang into action and, egged on by Nutsonline.com, began to pummel CBS suits with tons of protest peanuts, which are not nuts, by the way.

This was supposed to be a reference to the "Nuts!" line delivered by Jericho's resident hottie Jake Green, played by Skeet Ulrich, in response to a demand for surrender from a formerly peaceful town located down the road a spell.

Critics, many of whom have been holed up in the Beverly Hilton Hotel for more than a week, were not impressed by peanuts and sat through the session with murderous "Why not cashews?" looks in their eyes.

"If you guys had been asked what the viewers should send to CBS . . . what would you guys have sent?" one critic finally asked.

"Snakes," Ulrich said without missing a beat.

"Strippers!" cast mate Lennie James chimed in.

"Little-people strippers," actress Ashley Scott added for reasons not entirely clear.

"Strippers that bounce," James said, improving on the theme.

James said they thought it might be a good idea to try to insert into each episode a line fans could rally around, a la "Nuts!" But this time they'd be smart enough to buy the online company that would cash in on fans' enthusiasm.

"That's Strippersthatbounce.com. That's what we're going to do -- so listen out for it."