Weird Al and Tim Robinson both win big at the Creative Arts Emmys
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, The Last Of Us, and I Think You Should Leave's Tim Robinson were all winners at Night 1 of the Creative Arts Emmys
Aux News Emmys
There were no mid-budget, cult favorite stars shining in the Hollywood sky on Saturday night—because they were all at the Creative Arts Emmys, getting the kinds of awards that the award show’s Primetime bigger sibling is just too damn scared to hand out. Where else but the CA Emmys can nerds like us get to see folks like Weird Al Yankovic, the cast and crew of a high-profile video game adaptation, and both leads from Comedy Central’s late, lamented Detroiters get their plaudits? Truly, the ceremony’s first night (with the second scheduled to run tonight, neck and neck with the Golden Globes) was a paradise for weirdos.
Including Yankovic, who showed up to pick up the Outstanding Television Movie award for his 2023 “biopic” Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. (Which also won for Outstanding Music Composition For A Limited Or Anthology Series, Movie Or Special (Original Dramatic Score), in what might legitimately be the greatest critical night in the whole history of The Roku Channel.) Among other things, that means Yankovic is now fully halfway to EGOT after 6 Grammy wins across his long career; once the Oscars get their act together and issue a retroactive Best Song award to 1996's theme from Spy Hard, he’ll be right on the verge of greatness.
Meanwhile, the Emmys also acknowledged both Sam Richardson and Tim Robinson, with the former getting the nod for Guest Actor In A Comedy Series for Ted Lasso (Judith Light winning the corresponding award for Guest Actress for Poker Face), while Robinson was acknowledged as Outstanding Actor In A Short Form Comedy Or Drama Series, beating out Kevin Hart and Ben Schwartz, both for Die Hart 2. This is us editorializing massively, of course, but what a joy it is to see Robinson’s hyper-committed, flop-sweat-heavy performances in his sketch comedy series I Think You Should Leave get acknowledged like this; he and long-time friend Richardson took a photo together with their statues that lit up our Detroiters-loving hearts.
Elsewhere, the big winner of the night was HBO’s The Last Of Us, which won 8 awards, including for prosthetics, credits sequence, sound mixing, special visual effects, sound editing, and picture editing. (It also pulled down both Outstanding Guest Actor/Actress awards, netting Storm Reid and Nick Offerman their first Emmy wins each.) The Bear, Wednesday, and The White Lotus all pulled down four awards apiece, while Netflix’s Beef took in 3. Oh, and because the Creative Arts Emmys are way out ahead of the Oscars in terms of acknowledging stunt work: Barry, The Boys, and The Mandalorian all took home awards for stunt coordination or performance in their individual categories.
19 Comments
I’ve come to the realisation that ITYSL is the type of comedy that just isn’t funny when you try telling people about it. After seeing so many people (including on here) go on about how funny it is, despite not *sounding* funny when people talk about it, I gave it a go. And laughed like a goddamn loon for most of it. The baby competition, fart toilet, I HAVE SO MUCH STUFF ON MY PHONE etc. Not at all what I expected (ie. a LOT weirder, which, yes please).
Is there any type of comedy that’s funny when you try telling people about it?
Wait, wait. You have to get it. See, there’s this CHICKEN. It needs to cross the road – so you’re like setting up this tension…
Best example of this I’ve seen is in the excellent (but *heavy*) book “Le Ton Bot De Marot” by Douglas Hofstadter. It’s (broadly) about the inherent difficulty in translation, but there’s a whole chapter about the special challenges in translating comedy in particular, and you’re absolutely right — once you dissect comedy to understand what makes it funny, it isn’t funny. It very much dies and becomes utterly serious.
Nah.“Don’t think about things” is always the mantra of the incurious.
I think you miss the point. I strongly recommend the book; it’s absolutely fascinating. Dissecting comedy doesn’t make it uninteresting — it just makes it not funny, and as you dissect it, you can see precisely why. The process changes the very conditions that trigger the humor. Which, of course, goes right along with why it’s so difficult to translate comedy effectively — words in a different language don’t have the same precise meaning, so once you translate it, it loses its punch. What was a pun in one language, becomes just nonsense in another.
Of course! But it’s deeply subjective. Someone can tell me about the work of Chris Morris, for example, and it’ll get a chuckle out of me, but I’m sure others would reply with a dead-eyed stare.
Nick Offerman! Much deserved. That episode should get all the awards in existence.
Two of the most interesting wins won’t even be in the televised ceremony. Can’t imagine why the viewership has fallen so low.
Does… this mean the rest of the Emmys are in the Not Particularly Creative Arts categories?
The Derivative Arts Emmys.
I’m confused too. I always thought that “Creative Arts” awards were for the people who literally create/craft things — sets, props, costumes, makeup, etc. Using that definition, I could understand why acting and directing would be awarded separately. But apparently I’m wrong, so I don’t know where I got that idea from.
Pretty much everything that they can’t fit into the Primetime awards.
“Can’t” is a weird way to describe it. They could restructure the schedule to fit all of the acting awards if they chose to. But instead, they’ve decided that some awards just aren’t as cool/interesting as others. And so actors in the short form category get shunned to the lesser program. It’s not “can’t,” it’s “won’t.”
You know, I’d never thought about Weird Al being an EGOT contender but at least when it comes to the Tony Awards, I guarantee that man could write a brilliant musical comedy that would clean up, if he ever decided to do so. I would not be remotely shocked to see him get that “T” in the EGOT at some point.
At this point in his career he could probably get away with almost anything that stays in his basic lane. I could totally see a jukebox musical written by him with his stuff functioning as a parody of the form.
My man should have won his Oscar for the theme to Spyhard.
When awards dare to be stupid we all win.
The Weird Al movie was all sorts of fun. Haven’t enjoyed a movie that much in a long time.