The Emmy nominations were announced today. Getting into the whole "how did X not get nominated? They wuz robbed!!!" kind of discussion is kind of pointless, but I did have to point out one anomaly in the Best Comedy nominations:
For best comedy, HBO's Flight of the Conchords and Entourage, along with Showtime's Weeds, will battle NBC's The Office and Rock, along with first-time nominees Fox's Family Guy and CBS' How I Met Your Mother. (Family Guy is TV's first animated series to get a best-comedy nod since The Flintstones in 1961).Now, surely, there's been some mistake. That dusty envelope, which no doubt had fallen behind a filing cabinet in, say, 1992 or 1993 and said The Simpsons on the inside, right? Don't get me wrong, I loves me some Family Guy, but it shouldn't be the one to make this breakthrough. Heck, I'd put some of South Park's prime stuff in there first.
5 comments:
Showbiz is a complicated business, and I know all about it. In 1989, i shook Adam West's hand as he signed my "Batman: The Movie" VHS, so I'm an expert.
Shows have to enter themselves in a specific category, and the guy who does Family Guy decided to eschew the Animated category in favour of entering the plain old Best Comedy. My guess is that none of the other animated shows entered into that category.
One of Pixar's guys raised a similar red flag about the Oscar category for animation, saying that their movies are good enough to complete in any of the non-animation categories.
Now that you mention it, that makes sense. I remember stories from years past of actors mysteriously not getting nominated, only for it to come out that they forgot to submit their own names. Seems like a silly way to do things, if you ask me.
FWIW, according to Wikipedia (I know, I know), when the rules changed to allow cartoons to be submitted for best comedy, The Simpsons submitted in 1993 and 1994 without getting a nomination. So the original point still stands.
Well, anyone can submit an entry to that category... whether they get picked to be on the short list is another matter. I don't know what else was nominated that year, but I'm not sure I would have shortlisted the early 90s Simpsons either to be honest! =D
Blasphemy!
I've also always thought it was weird that the best comedy/best drama shows are actually only based on a couple of episodes each, rather than the entire season.
Back to Wiki . . .
To be fair, it would have been hard to break into the nominees back in 1993 and 1994:
1993:
Seinfeld (winner)
Cheers
Home Improvement
The Larry Sanders Show
Murphy Brown
1994:
Frasier (winner)
Home Improvement
The Larry Sanders Show
Mad About You
Seinfeld
I think I'd slip The Simpsons of that ear in for Home Improvement and Mad About You.
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