TVSquad

If there's any part of the press tour that's hard it's a situation like this: imagine being in a room with the cast of a show no one really likes much, extolling its virtues to disbelieving ears. To fill the boredom, the uncomfortable stars and creators start cracking jokes that no one thinks are funny. On top of that, there aren't enough questions to fill the time, so reporters start getting creative in order to keep the discomfort level at a minimum.

That's what I got when I sat in on the panel for the new ABC sitcom In Case of Emergency.

The entire cast was there: Greg Germann, David Arquette, Jonathan Silverman, Lori Laughlin, and the lovely Kelly Hu, as well as executive producers Howard Morris and Emile Levisetti. In essence, they were talking about how great it is to work with such great writers and comic actors and blah blah blah. Silverman tried cracking jokes and failed. Germann was better, but not by much. Hu even tried to crack a joke or two. But nothing was registering with the sparse gathering of reporters.

So the odd questions began:

• To all: "What do you like about your character?"
• To Arquette: "Did your wife (Courtney Cox) or sister (Patricia Arquette) give you advice about working on TV?"
• To Hu: "Did you run the Honolulu Marathon like you said you were going to?"
• To Arquette and Silverman: "Your signficant others (Cox and Close to Home's Jennifer Finnigan, respectively) play such strong women on TV. Who wears the pants in the family?"
• To Laughlin: " " (that's silence, since no one asked her any questions, despite the fact that she's been on TV longer than anyone else in the cast.)

There were some good responses to some of these:

• Germann: "I like my character because it's in the show, so I get to be on the show."
• Laughlin: "Coco wears the pants in the Arquette family."
• Silverman: "Everyone agrees that the best kisser in the cast is David."

Other than that? Not much of consequence. I did go up to Arquette and asked him about spilling details about his friends Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt on Howard Stern's radio show. He had an interesting response, which I'll post tomorrow. At least I got something out of the session.