The firefighters working the red carpet at the 61st annual Emmy Awards were worried that at least one reality TV star might be going home Sunday with more than just a trophy.
"Hey, did you see Heidi Klum? She's like 8 months pregnant. So you be ready, you might have to deliver," fire Inspector Jim Fisher told his colleague Craig Hancock as they and other authorities hustled Emmy VIPs into the Nokia Theatre before Sunday's show.
A bystander asked Fisher if he knew what Klum, the host of "Project Runway," was wearing.
"Don"t ask a guy wearing polyester that kind of question," replied Fisher, dressed in a white uniform shirt and fire-resistant gray pants.
"What about me? This is wool," piped up Sgt. Pete Foster, who was wearing a wool shirt.
Choppers!
Awards show winners can expect to get played off the stage by the house orchestra if their speeches run a little too long. Helicopters, however, usually leave them alone.
Not so for Jessica Lange.
The winner of the Emmy for lead actress in a miniseries or movie was taking reporters' questions in the press area on the roof of the Nokia Theatre when a helicopter appeared out of the darkness.
"I think we're being surveilled," Lange joked as the copter created a huge racket and the wind from its blades rippled the press tent.
Phone a friend
Your cell phone: If you're an Emmy nominee you don't want to leave home without it.
There was producer Jerry Bruckheimer at the Emmy trophy table, texting away as the awards show was unfolding around him.
The writers from "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" whipped out their cell phones backstage to take pictures of each other after winning their Emmys.
And there was Stewart himself, using his cell phone to check the sports scores before collecting his Emmys for best variety, music or comedy series and for best writing for a variety, music or comedy series.
He ain't heavy, he's my Emmy
Much is made about how heavy those Emmy statuettes are, but don't tell that to a guy like Alec Baldwin.
"I am shocked ... to get this again," said Baldwin, who was also nominated for the award in 2007 but didn't win that year.
One thing the Emmys are is eye-catching.
"Wow, that's so amazing," said Jessica Lange as she surveyed a table full of glittering trophies backstage after winning one for actress in a miniseries or movie for "Grey Gardens."
"Eeny, meeny, miny, moe — this one will do," she said as she selected en Emmy to take home.
What now?
So, just what happens to those Emmy awards after people take them home?
"I'll give this to my wife. This is lovely," Ken Howard, who won for supporting actor in a TV movie or miniseries for "Grey Gardens," said as he traded his prop Emmy backstage for a real one.
Brendan Gleeson, who had followed Howard to the podium to accept the best actor award in a TV movie or miniseries for "Into the Storm," told the audience his wife would get his award. She "has to put up with me when I come home," he said.
"30 Rock" producer Lorne Michaels said he plans to give his Emmy to his daughter.
Jeff Probst of "Survivor" says his Emmy for reality TV show host is going to his mother.
"She has the other one," said Probst who also won last year. "A very proud mom."
Trophy table tales
The Emmy trophy table moved up in the world this year.
After giving their acceptance speeches, Emmy winners exited the theater through a back door, then headed for the table where they traded their generic trophy for one of the real ones. A nameplate with their name and the category in which they were honored will arrive in the mail later.
Jon Cryer, one of the night's early winners, made a big production of kissing the Emmy he won for supporting actor in "Two and a Half Men," but the trophy he smooched wasn't his — it was one of the props handed out on stage.
Later, he raced past the trophy table with it as his publicist promised, "We'll be back!"