The Hollywood Reporter's Ray Richmond generously blogs for newbies his ten unwritten rules for getting along at the Television Critics Association's group grope in Pasadena without offending your competitors, colleagues or future bosses. He's motivated by the advice he didn't get while he was a talent coordinator and segment producer at "The Merv Griffin Show," way back. "What I wasn't told by my fellow talent coordinators prior to my first pre-show meeting with Merv was that you were never to try to be funny in Merv's presence lest he grow offended at the sheer audacity of your thinking you might succeed in drawing a smile." Excerpts:

The TV critics have unwritten rules at these affairs, an ingrained code of conduct that first-timers no doubt find perplexing, not to mention unnerving. If you don't know how to properly behave, there is guaranteed to be embarrassment, admonishments, angry stares, wagging fingers and, in rare cases, the outright withholding of meaningless chit-chat. You risk being ostracized, isolated, gossiped about, possibly even placed on the TCA's version of probation (having your key access to the prison cell-size official association suite at the hotel taken away).

To guard against such public humiliation and potential trauma, I submit the 10 Iron-Clad Unwritten Rules of TCA:

1. Critics do not applaud at any session no matter what! And when company drones in attendance take to clapping, critics are expected to assume the "Buddha Position" (arms crossed, legs crossed, staring blankly straight ahead, all of the body's muscles in complete repose). The louder the surrounding applause, the more blank and emotionless the expression and inert the limbs.

2. The more popular the star attending a session happens to be, the less outwardly impressed the critic must appear...

3. When asking a question of anyone (executive, producer or star) on a panel, never address he or she by first name. It's not "Ted" but "Mr. Danson." You are not their friend. You are their journalistic overlord...

4. If you ask any question during a session that smacks of ass-kissing, your chances of ever achieving the respect of your fellow critics hovers close to zero...

8. You can eat the free food supplied by the hotel and covered on the networks' dime but cannot appear to be enjoying it excessively.

Oh, and the current press tour always "sucks or bites" when compared to previous tours. He also warns that bringing along a plus-one to TCA events is "not the politically savvy thing to do."

Photo: Hollywood Reporter