Cynopsis presents: The Primetime Emmy^® Awards 2009
In the category of “Outstanding Comedy Series”

07.29.09

Good morning. It’s Wednesday, July 29, 2009, and this is the first in a special five-part series on this year’s Emmy® Awards.  Each weekly installment will concentrate on one or two award categories with information about each of the nominees as provided by the nominee and/or the nominee’s representatives.  Each installment will also open with an editorial about the category, as written for Cynopsis by P.J. Bednarski.  As always with any special edition, we hope you find the information relevant, interesting and informative, and encourage your feedback.

THE COMEDIES
by P.J. Bednarski

The Emmy® Awards is coming close to having its last laugh. Increasingly in this decade, shows nominated for outstanding comedy series don’t have laugh tracks. But the trend has developed, appropriately, without much buzz.  This year, of the nominees, only CBS’s How I Met Your Mother is augmented with the laugh machine, a device that goes back to the infancy of television. In 2008 and 2007, Two and a Half Men alone represented the dwindling canned laughter wing.  

Gradually through this decade, more and more comedies in Emmy® competition are like 30 Rock, the NBC series that copped a record 22 nominations: If the audience wants to laugh, they’ll have to figure out when all by themselves.

The lack of a laugh track or studio audience is not the only fully developed but subtle trend:  the single-camera comedies now dominate. Single-camera shows give comedies more flexibility to leave the set, or center on one actor. (To see for yourself, compare an episode of single-camera The Office with, say, an episode of CBS’s old and Emmy®-honored Everybody Loves Raymond. Regardless of the comedy content, the shows just have a different feel.) How I Met Your Mother is the lone multi-camera hold out this year.

Until recently, television comedies were always half-hour affairs. Producers and networks are chipping away at that.  This year, hour-long Showtime’s Weeds is nominated. In 2007, ABC’s Ugly Betty was tapped, but didn’t win. And a decade ago,  the quirky, hour-long lawyer comedy, Ally McBeal took home the prize.    

Probably the most noteworthy nomination may be the Emmy® nod earned by Fox’s The Family Guy. It’s the first time ATAS has let voters consider an animated series for outstanding comedy since The Flintstones lost to Jack Benny in 1961.

Remarkably, The Simpsons, now the longest running fictional series in prime time and the longest running comedy in history, has previously won two Emmys® as the best animated program, but never nominated in the best comedy category. Even Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane has said that seems wrong. The nomination is a jab in the side to the Parents Television Council, the watchdog group that criticizes the Fox series for stretching – oh, really, blasting past – the limits of taste and topicality. But for fans that saved the show from an early death in 2003, it’s precisely that rawness they love.

Still, the favorite feels like 30 Rock. Five of the six outstanding writing nods, and three out of six directing nominations go to the show. Its success mimics Hill Street Blues, the acclaimed NBC drama that grabbed a now second-best 21 Emmy® nominations in its first season 1981, when NBC was underwater in the Nielsens. That genre-shattering cop drama eventually helped lift NBC to ratings dominance for most of the 80s and 90s.

Once again, NBC is barely afloat in Nielsens and a good 30 Rock showing would score some promotional points. Emmy® has picked 30 Rock in its first two seasons, and star Tina Fey also was named the best actress in a comedy series two years running. If it can deliver on many of those 22 nominations tries this year, that slumping peacock could put a little prideful strut in its gait.  

AND THE NOMINEES ARE … OUTSTANDING COMEDY SERIES:

Outstanding Comedy Series:  Entourage
Network:  HBO
Studio(s):  Leverage and Closest to the Hole Productions in association with HBO Entertainment

Outstanding Comedy Series:  Family Guy
Network:  Fox
Studio:  Fox Television Animation

Outstanding Comedy Series:  Flight of the Conchords
Network:  HBO
Studio(s):  Dakota Pictures and Comedy Arts in association with HBO Entertainment

Outstanding Comedy Series:  How I Met Your Mother
Network:  CBS
Studio:  20th Century Fox Television

Outstanding Comedy Series:  The Office
Network:  NBC
Studio(s):  Deedle-Dee Productions and Reveille LLC in association with Universal Media Studios

Outstanding Comedy Series:  30 Rock
Network:  NBC
Studio(s):  Broadway Video, Little Stranger, Inc. in association with Universal Media Studios

Outstanding Comedy Series:  Weeds
Network: Showtime
Studio(s): Showtime Presents in association with Lionsgate Television and Tilted Productions, Inc.

AND THE NOMINEES ARE … OUTSTANDING DIRECTING FOR A COMEDY SERIES:

Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series:  Entourage
Episode Title: Tree Trippers
Network: HBO
Studio(s): Leverage and Closest to the Hole Productions in association with HBO Entertainment
Director’s Name:  Julian Farino

Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series:  Flight of the Conchords
Episode Title:  The Tough Brets
Network: HBO
Studio(s): Dakota Pictures and Comedy Arts in association with HBO Entertainment
Director’s Name: James Bobin

Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series: The Office
Episode Title:  Stress Relief
Network: NBC
Studio(s): Deedle-Dee Productions and Reveille LLC in association with Universal Media Studios
Director’s Name: Jeff Blitz

Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series: 30 Rock
Episode Title: Apollo, Apollo
Network: NBC
Studio(s): Broadway Video, Little Stranger, Inc. in association with Universal Media Studios
Director’s Name: Millicent Shelton

Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series: 30 Rock
Episode Title:  Reunion
Network: NBC
Studio(s): Broadway Video, Little Stranger, Inc. in association with Universal Media Studios
Director’s Name: Beth McCarthy

Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series: 30 Rock
Episode Title:  Generalissimo
Network: NBC
Studio(s): Broadway Video, Little Stranger, Inc. in association with Universal Media Studios
Director’s Name: Todd Holland

AND THE NOMINEES ARE … OUTSTANDING WRITING FOR A COMEDY SERIES:

Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series:  Flight of the Conchords
Episode Title:  Prime Minister
Network: HBO
Studio(s): Dakota Pictures and Comedy Arts in association with HBO Entertainment
Writer’s Name(s): James Bobin, Jemaine Clement, Bret McKenzie

Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series:  30 Rock
Episode Title: Reunion
Network: NBC
Studio(s): Broadway Video, Little Stranger, Inc. in association with Universal Media Studios
Writer’s Name: Matt Hubbard

Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series:  30 Rock
Episode Title:  Apollo, Apollo
Network: NBC
Studio(s): Broadway Video, Little Stranger, Inc. in association with Universal Media Studios
Writer’s Name: Robert Carlock

Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series:  30 Rock
Episode Title:  Mamma Mia
Network: NBC
Studio(s): Broadway Video, Little Stranger, Inc. in association with Universal Media Studios
Writer’s Name: Ron Weiner

Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series:  30 Rock
Episode Title: Kidney Now!
Network: NBC
Studio(s): Broadway Video, Little Stranger, Inc. in association with Universal Media Studios
Writer’s Name(s): Jack Burditt, Robert Carlock

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

Emmy® Fact:  It was on January 25, 1949 when the very first Emmy® Awards program was presented at the Hollywood Athletic Club, honoring only those shows produced and locally aired in the LA area.  It wasn’t until the 1950’s that the Emmy® Awards were expanded to a national event and presented awards to shows which were broadcast nationwide.  The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and The Emmy® Awards origination was established as part of an image-building and PR opportunity.

Later — Cyn
07.29.09

Cynopsis Media Facebook Page here

Cynopsis Ad Sales:
Chuck Bolkcom, Pres/COO – 646-468-6180 /

Classifieds – Trish Pihonak- 203-926-9878 /

Member of Interactive Advertising Bureau (iab)