Awards

The Daily Show won outstanding talk series at the 2024 Primetime Emmys, which were held at the Peacock Theater in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday (Sept. 15).  It’s the franchise’s 13th win in that category (or predecessor categories). The Daily Show With Jon Stewart won 11 times. The Daily Show With Trevor Noah won once, last year. This year, the show won with six rotating hosts: Stewart, Ronny Chieng, Jordan Klepper, Michael Kosta, Desi Lydic and Dulcé Sloan.
This brings Stewart’s total of Primetime Emmys to 23. The record for most Emmy wins is held by Sheila Nevins, who has won 32 Primetime Emmys for her work on HBO programs.

The Daily Show won in a stacked category that also included Jimmy Kimmel Live!, The Late Show With Stephen Colbert and Late Night With Seth Meyers. None of these other shows have ever won in this category. This is the 12th nomination in the category for Jimmy Kimmel Live!, which puts it in a tie with Real Time With Bill Maher for the most nods here without a win. It’s the seventh nod for Colbert’s show and the second for Meyers’ show.

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Kimmel expressed mock dismay at the result. “Jon, you should be ashamed of yourself. You said you were retiring.”

The Primetime Emmys were ably hosted by the father-and-son team of Eugene and Dan Levy, who each won multiple Emmys four years ago for their work on Schitt’s Creek.

Last Week Tonight With John Oliver won outstanding scripted variety show for the second year in a row, again beating Saturday Night Live. Prior to these two wins, Last Week Tonight won outstanding variety talk series seven years running. In addition, Oliver and his writers have won the Emmy for writing in variety nine years in a row. Oliver won his first three Primetime Emmys as a writer on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.

Shōgun won four awards on the telecast, including outstanding drama series. Adding in the 14 awards it won at last weekend’s Creative Arts Emmys, the show won 18 Emmys for its first season – more than any other series in a single year. Shōgun is the first show to win outstanding drama series for its freshman season since The Handmaid’s Tale seven years ago.

Much of the dialog on Shōgun is in Japanese. It was the second non-English-language series to be nominated for outstanding drama series, following the Korean-language Squid Game, which was nominated (but didn’t win) two years ago.

This increasing globalization at the Emmys mirrors what is happening in both film and popular music. At the Oscars earlier this year, for the first time, three films that are largely in a language other than English – Anatomy of a Fall, Past Lives and The Zone of Interest – were nominated for best picture. And in the past decade, we’ve witnessed the exploding popularity of Latin music and K-pop. Two years ago, Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti became the first Spanish-language album to receive a Grammy nod for album of the year.

The Bear also won four awards on the telecast. Adding in the seven awards it won at the Creative Arts Emmys, the show won 11 Emmys for its second season. That allows it to break its own record, set last year, for the most wins for a comedy series in a single season. But, in a surprise, it lost best comedy series to Hacks, which won three total awards.

Trailing Shōgun and The Bear in terms of most 2024 Emmy wins (combining tonight’s telecast and the Creative Arts Emmys) are: Baby Reindeer and Saturday Night Live (six each); Jim Henson Idea Man (five); Blue Eye Samurai, The Oscars and Ripley (four each); Hacks, Billy Joel: The 100th—Live at Madison Square Garden, The Crown, The Morning Show, Only Murders in the Building and Welcome to Wrexham (three each; and The Daily Show, Girls State, How I Met Your Father, Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, Love On The Spectrum, Mr. & Mrs. Smith and The Traitors (two each).

Only Murders in the Building was nominated for outstanding comedy series for the third year in a row, which makes Selena Gomez (who is an executive producer of the show) the most-nominated Latina producer in Emmy history. (Gomez has said she is “a proud third-generation American-Mexican.”) Gomez was also nominated for outstanding lead actress in a comedy series for the first time, but lost to Hacks‘ Jean Smart. Gomez, one of five Latinx nominees this year, was seated in the front row with her boyfriend, music producer Benny Blanco.

The Traitors won outstanding reality competition program in its second year on the air. It beat four past winners in the category: The Amazing Race (10 wins), RuPaul’s Drag Race (five wins), The Voice (four wins) and Top Chef (one win). Alan Cumming, host of The Traitors, won outstanding host for a reality or reality competition program at last weekend’s Creative Arts Emmys.

This ends an eight-year streak in which RuPaul Charles has won at least one Primetime Emmy. He has won 14 Primetime Emmys, which is more than any other person of color.

Music played a major role on the Emmy telecast.

Jelly Roll sang his current hit “I Am Not Okay,” which soundtracked the In Memoriam spot. The song, which he co-wrote with Taylor Phillips, Ashley Gorley and Casey Brown, was highly effective, more so than the sometimes overly obvious classics which are generally used in this spot. The segment included Martin Mull, game show host Peter Marshall, talk show host Phil Donahue and exercise guru Richard Simmons and was capped by comedy legend Bob Newhart. Jimmy Kimmel chose two words that described Newhart to a T: “politely hilarious.” There was another tribute to Newhart, when the music at the end of the show was the theme to The Bob Newhart Show (1972-78).

In addition, the producers laid in clever music cues throughout the show. Leading into a segment on TV dads, they played The Temptations’ 1972 classic “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone.” Leading into a segment on coaches, they played Survivor’s 1982 motivational anthem “Eye of the Tiger.” A tribute to producer Greg Berlanti, who received the 2024 Governors Award,  featured Paula Cole’s 1997 hit “I Don’t Want to Wait,” the theme from his breakthrough hit Dawson’s Creek. Ron Howard and Henry Winkler capped a bit about Happy Days’ 50th anniversary with Winkler as The Fonz hitting the jukebox to get it to play the show’s theme song, Pratt & McClain’s “Happy Days,” a top five hit on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1976.

In one other music note, John Oliver paid tender tribute to his dog who had recently died, and noted, “I feel like Sarah McLachlan now.”