RuPaul, Last Week Tonight, Amy Poehler and Other Big Comedy Wins at the Creative Arts Emmys
There’s plenty of reasons to pay attention to the Creative Emmys- at least as much attention as you’d pay to any awards shows. Non-industry television fans rarely follow the more technical side of the Emmy Awards, thinking that the topics are too technical. Yes, hairstyling, sound mixing and editing are part of the Creative Emmys, but there are plenty of talent categories and plenty of recognition went out to comedy performances and series over the weekend.
One of the most talked about awards given at the Creative Emmys went to RuPaul Charles, for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program. RuPaul beat out network heavyweights like Jane Lynch, Steve Harvey, Ryan Seacrest, and Tom Bergeron as well as former winners Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn to get the award. RuPaul’s Drag Race just finished its eight season and if you’re wondering what this has to do with comedy, you just aren’t watching.
Everyone’s also talking about Amy Poehler’s first Emmy win after 17 nominations. She shared her Creative Arts Emmy with Tina Fey for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for their turn as hosts of Saturday Night Live earlier this year. Peter Scolari grabbed the Outstanding Guest Actor counterpart for his turn on the HBO series, Girls.
Inside Amy Schumer and director Ryan McFaul were awarded a CAE for Outstanding Directing for a Variety Series for the sketch “Madonna/Whore”. In the writing category, the Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series Emmy went to the team at HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, a team that includes Oliver himself, as well as America’s favorite nice comedian, Josh Gondelman as well as Kevin Avery, Tim Carvell, Dan Gurewitch, Geoff Haggerty, Jeff Maurer, Scott Sherman, Will Tracy, Jill Twiss, and Juli Weiner.
Staying in late night, James Corden’s Late Late Show Carpool Karaoke Prime Time Special picked up the award for Outstanding Variety Special, beating out some serious competition including the Kennedy Center Honors, two HBO specials- Beyonce’s Lemonade and Amy Schumer: Live at the Apollo as well as NBC’s Adele Live in New York City.
Adult Swim’s Children’s Hospital and Robot Chicken were recognized. Children’s Hospital took the award for Outstanding Short Form Comedy or Drama Series, and Rob Corddry grabbed an Emmy for Outstanding Actor in a Short Form Comedy or Drama. The Robot Chicken Christmas Special: The X-Mas United went home with an award for Outstanding Short Form Animated Program.
Outstanding Animated Program went to Archer over on FX; this is Archer’s first Emmy win. And staying in the animated category, Seth MacFarlane won an Emmy for Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance for his roles as Peter, Stewie. Brian and Glen on Family Guy.
Comedy programming picked up plenty of love for their social and interactive experience components. The Late Late Show with James Corden was awarded the Emmy for Outstanding Interactive Program, Archer Scavenger Hunt took home the Outstanding Achievement in Interactive Media Award for Multiplatform Storytelling, Chris Hardwick’s @midnight won an Emmy for the best Social TV Experience, and Cartoon Network’s App Experience was recognized for the Best User Experience and Visual Design.
Other awards went to Veep for Outstanding Casting, Transparent for Outstanding Production Design, The Big Bang Theory for Multi-Camera Picture Editing for a Comedy Series, Mozart in the Jungle for Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Half Hour Comedy or Drama Series, Portlandia won the award for Outstanding Production Design For A Variety, Nonfiction, Reality Or Reality-Competition Series, SNL picked up an Outstanding Hairstyling Award for Multi Camera Series or Special, and Last Week Tonight grabbed another award for Outstanding Picture Editing For Variety Programming.
Congratulations also to sometimes comedy/sometimes dramatic show host Steve Buscemi, who’s web series Park Bench with Steve Buscemi went home with a Creative Arts Emmy for Outstanding Short Form Variety Series.
The Prime Time Emmy Awards show will air on Sunday night September 18, 2016, at 8:00 PM ET/5:00 PM PT on ABC. Jimmy Kimmel hosts this year.
