New Delhi, June 12 -- The joke lasted a few seconds. The argument over it, by Wanda Sykes' account, followed her out of the building and into a parking lot, where one of the most famous talking heads in American television wanted to know why she had said it.

"Bill Maher, you give us so much. But I would love a little less. Just, try less."

Maher did not win the category. Ricky Gervais did, for his special "Mortality," and Sykes used her time at the microphone to accept the trophy on the absent Gervais' behalf with a pointed thank-you to the trans community. The Maher line might have evaporated like every other presenter jab. Instead, Sykes says, it earned a sequel in the parking lot.

There, by her telling, Maher approached and asked wh...