Sunday night at the 76th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards, John Leguizamo delivered a stirring address on representation. He singled out minorities who won awards during the ceremony. Liza Colon-Zayas made history as the first Latina to win Best Supporting Actress for The Bear. Anna Sawai became the first Asian to win a Best Drama Actress honour for her role in Shogun. That subtitled series won the most awards, including Outstanding Drama Series and a well deserved Best Actor nod for Hiroyuki Sanada.
One group that was well represented all night on stage, if not in award wins, were the Canadians. They were led by Eugene and Dan Levy, the father-and-son hosts who worked their Schitt’s Creek shtick to perfection.
Their funniest bit came mid show, when Eugene went up the wrong aisle and had to do a long distance intro with his flustered son. An obvious idea, it worked well because Eugene stayed with his befuddled, low-key dad thing and son Dan artfully lost his Schitt.
Eugene also asked the winners to keep things short and get off when the band starting cutting things off. Otherwise he’d have to step in and Canadians just can’t handle confrontations or awkward moments.
After the opening monologue, another Canadian, Martin Short from Eugene’s old Hamilton, Ont., neighbourhood, took the stage with his Only Murders in the Building colleagues Steve Martin and Selina Gomez. Those three are always welcome and can host next year.
And who was that sitting next to Short Sunday night in the front rows? Meryl Streep. In earlier ceremonies, she picked up an Emmy for her role opposite Short in Season Three of Only Murders.
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Loving it all was another Canadian in the front rows, Etobicoke lass Catherine O’Hara. She was showcased later, presenting one of the night’s biggest awards, Best Comedy, to Hacks. She was also there at the very end, next to the Levys and their fellow Canuck castmate, Annie Murphy.
Among the other Emmy highlights:
The producers clearly paid attention to all the negative tweets from last Winter’s Oscar broadcast, when the In Memoriam segment was overproduced to the point where you couldn’t see or read the names of those being rememberd. The Emmys got it right with a simple and straight-forward approach. All the late, great artists, such as Bob Newhart, above, were shown in giant, full-screen portraits. There were no conflicting cutaways to music acts, just Jelly Roll, shown only between the portraits, singing his song, “I Am Not Okay.” James Earl Jones, Martin Mull, Ryan O’Neal and Phil Donahue were among those we will miss.
Jimmy Kimmel came on stage at the end of the sement to pay personal tribute to Newhart, someone, he said, who had something most comics today do not have: “An accounting degree.”
The Emmys continued an element introduced last year at the 75th annual awards — on stage cast reunions of yesterday’s favourites. One Sunday night harkened back 50 years to the premiere of Happy Days. Only two members stood on the recreated Arnold’s Drive-In set, but they were the right two, Ron Howard (“Ritchie Cunningham”) and “The Fonz,” Henry Winkler. The ABC sitcom ran from 1974 to 1985. Howard won an Emmy earlier last week for directing his documentary “Jim Henson, Idea Man.”
Lamorne Morris, probably best known still from New Girl, won a Best Supporting Actor in a Drama award for the recent season of Fargo. Or was it for all those BMO commercials in Canada?
Two-time Oscar winner Jody Foster won her first Emmy for her star turn on the recent season of True Detective. She should have won one 55 years ago, back when she tormented little Eddie (Brandon Cruze) on The Courtship of Eddie’s Father.
Hacks snuck through a crowded field to win Best Comedy. This was somewhat of an upset, with The Bear winning a fridge full of other Emmys after a record number of nominations (including Best Limited or Anthology Series). But it’s not a comedy, so justice prevailed. Jean Smart won her third Emmy in a row as the lead in this series. Not winning was Curb Your Enthusiasm in its final season, Reservation Dogs (also not coming back), former winner Abbot Elementary and a lackluster series that, except for Carol Burnett’s cameos, mustered very few laughs, Palm Royale.
FX’s Shogun won 14 Emmys heading into the televised awards and picked up four more including Best Drama. That’s 18 wins in one season, a new record for The Emmys. Much of it was shot just 30 minutes east of Vancouver on thw western edge of Vancouver Island. It was good to hear FX’s PR shogun John Solberg among those getting a shout out from the stage.
