2009 Emmy nominees in comedy

Early this morning, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences announced the 2009 Primetime Emmy Award nominees, and E Pluribus Unum, everyone, am I right? Out of many, one. There certainly are many nominees in several of the categories, but only one shall win come awards-handing-out-time (clearly, my grammatical skills are lacking today and not worth honoring with an Emmy, most especially because none of these words are appearing on TV). And as much as we can bemoan the fact that the Emmys preferred Entourage (gulp) and Family Guy (super gulp) over HBO's far superior Eastbound & Down in the comedy series category, or note that Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin is on such a hot streak, she's even nominated in the outstanding commercial category for meeting Martin Scorsese in an airport lounge over American Express cards, while he's honored for his work hustling Hulu. Fey's also nominated as "guest actress" in comedy for her ability to bring down Sarah Palin on SNL. Also, Sarah Silverman! OK. The winners will be announced Sept. 20 on CBS.

After the jump, a rundown of the 2009 Primetime Emmy Award nominees in the major comedy categories, and a couple of other slots worth mentioning…



Outstanding Animated Program (less than an hour): American Dad, Robot Chicken, South Park, The Simpsons
Outstanding Comedy Series: 30 Rock, Entourage, Family Guy, Flight of the Conchords, How I Met Your Mother, The Office, Weeds
Outstanding Commercial: Tina Fey and Martin Scorsese in "Airport Lounge" for AMEX, Alec Baldwin for Hulu, Nike's "Bottled Courage," Budweiser's "Circus," Coca-Cola's "Heist," Bud Light's "Magazine Buyer," Career Builder's "Tips," and Sprint Nextel's "Wedding."
Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series: Steve Martin (30 Rock), Jon Hamm (30 Rock), Alan Alda (30 Rock), Beau Bridges (Desperate Housewives), Justin Timberlake (SNL).
Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series: Jennifer Aniston (30 Rock), Elaine Stritch (30 Rock), Gena Rowlands (Monk), Betty White (My Name is Earl), Tina Fey (SNL), Christine Baranski (The Big Bang Theory).
What, no Amy Ryan for The Office? Outrage!

Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive Media: The Emmys are honoring three shows each for their online efforts in both "fiction" and "nonfiction" shows (interesting categorization for it!). Among them, lots of love for NBC. 30 Rock and The Office are up against Lost's Dharma Initiative in the "fiction" category, while the online homes for SNL and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon get some love (along with Top Chef) in the "nonfiction" group. So some of my friends are happy today. Congrats!

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series: Alec Baldwin (30 Rock), Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords), Tony Shaloub (Monk), Jim Parsons (The Big Bang Theory), Steve Carell (The Office), Charlie Sheen (Two and a Half Men).
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series: Tina Fey (30 Rock), Christina Applegate (Samantha Who?), Julia Louis-Dreyfus (The New Adventures of Old Christine), Sarah Silverman (The Sarah Silverman Program), Toni Collette (The United States of Tara), Mary-Louise Parker (Weeds)

Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics: Hugh Jackman's Oscars opening number, A Colbert Christmas, A Muppets Christmas, "Unnatural Love" from Flight of the Conchords, "Motherlover" from SNL, and "I Love Sports" from the ESPYs.

Outstanding Special Class: More new-media love. Bruce Springsteen's Super Bowl halftime show goes up against Web-only offerings such as "Kenneth the Page's" page on 30 Rock for Jack McBrayer, Dr. Horrible's SIng-a-long Blog, and The Daily Show's Correspondents pages, plus Battlestar Galactica's "Face of My Enemy" page?!?!? There's also another category for "nonfiction" to include Jay Leno's Garage?!?!?

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series: Tracy Morgan (30 Rock), Jack McBrayer (30 Rock), Kevin Dillon (Entourage), Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother), Rainn Wilson (The Office), Jon Cryer (Two and a Half Men).
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series: Jane Krakowski (30 Rock), Kristin Chenowith (Pushing Daisies), Amy Poehler (SNL), Kristen Wiig (SNL), Vanessa Williams (Ugly Betty), Elizabeth Perkins (Weeds).

Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series: Late Show with David Letterman, Real Time with Bill Maher, Saturday Night Live, The Colbert Report, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Special: Chris Rock's "Kill the Messenger," Kathy Griffin's "She'll Cut a Bitch," Ricky Gervais' "Out of England," The Kennedy Center Honors, and Will Ferrell's "You're Welcome America, A Final Night with George W. Bush"

Outstanding Voice-Over: Another category I don't remember seeing played up, and certainly not with one drama vs. comedies. It's Ron Rifkin narrating "American Masters" against Seth MacFarlane (Family Guy), Seth Green (Robot Chicken), Hank Azaria (The Simpsons), Harry Shearer (The Simpsons) and Dan Castellaneta (The Simpsons).

Outstanding Writing for Nonfiction Programming: Nods for the duo behind the multi-part PBS documentary, Make 'Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America, as well as for the team at Showtime's Penn & Teller: Bullshit! for the "New Age Medicine" episode.
Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series: Matt Hubbard (30 Rock), Robert Carlock (30 Rock), Ron Weiner (30 Rock), Jack Burditt and Robert Carlock (30 Rock), James Bobin, Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie (Flight of the Conchords).

Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Special: 81st Annual Academy Awards (Jon Macks, Jenny Bicks, Bill Condon, John Hoffman, Phil Alden Robinson, Bruce Vilanch, Dan Harmon, Rob Schrab, Ben Schwartz, Joel Stein), Chris Rock – Kill The Messenger (Chris Rock), Louis C.K.: Chewed Up (Louis CK) Ricky Gervais: Out Of England — The Stand-Up Special (Ricky Gervais), Will Ferrell: You're Welcome America. A Final Night With George W. Bush (Will Ferrell)

And in the category that's always the most creative in revealing its nominees during the actual broadcast…

Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Series:
Late Night With Conan O'Brien: Mike Sweeney, Chris Albers, Jose Arroyo, Dan Cronin, Kevin Dorff, Andres du Bouchet, Michael Gordon, Berkley Johson, Brian Kiley, Todd Levin, Brian McCann, Guy Nicolucci, Conan O'Brien, Matt O'Brien, Brian Stack, Andrew Weinberg

Late Show With David Letterman: Eric Stangel, Justin Stangel, Michael Barrie, Jim Mulholland, Steve Young, Tom Ruprecht, Lee Ellenberg, Matt Roberts, Jeremy Weiner, Joe Grossman, Bill Scheft, Bob Borden, Frank Sebastiano, David Letterman

Saturday Night Live: Seth Meyers, Doug Abeles, James Anderson, Alex Baze, Jessica Conrad, James Downey, Steve Higgins, Colin Jost, Erik Kenward, Rob Klein, John Lutz, Lorne Michaels, John Mulaney, Paula Pell, Simon Rich, Marika Sawyer, Akiva Schaffer, John Solomon, Emily Spivey, Kent Sublette, Jorma Taccone, Bryan Tucker

The Colbert Report: Stephen Colbert, Allison Silverman, Richard Dahm, Michael Brumm, Rob Dubbin, Opus Moreschi, Peter Gwinn, Jay Katsir, Frank Lesser, Tom Purcell, Glenn Eichler, Peter Grosz, Barry Julien, Meredith Scardino

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart: Steve Bodow, Jon Stewart, David Javerbaum, Josh Lieb, Rory Albanese, Kevin Bleyer, Jason Ross, Tim Carvell, John Oliver, Sam Means, Rob Kutner, J.R. Havlan, Rich Blomquist, Wyatt Cenac, Elliott Kalan, Rachel Axler

Sean L. McCarthy

Editor and publisher since 2007, when he was named New York's Funniest Reporter. Former newspaper reporter at the New York Daily News, Boston Herald and smaller dailies and community papers across America. Loves comedy so much he founded this site.

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