'Blue Eye Samurai' Wins Best Animated Series, Maya Rudolph Goes 1-For-3 At Creative Arts Emmys
'Blue Eye Samurai' Wins Best Animated Series, Maya Rudolph Goes 1-For-3 At Creative Arts Emmys
One of those defeats led to or was the result of an EGOT achievement, and hey, 'Ahsoka' got a win!
So here we are. The Creative Arts Primetime Emmys for 2024 have come and gone. Production design, costuming, animation, music, guest acting, voice acting, and narration are all here. The Creative Arts Emmys cover so many aspects of television production that they’re held over two nights and then condensed for broadcast on FXX on the Saturday before the main show, this year September 14. Only a handful of those categories are what I keep my eye on, but there was definitely at least one other award that seemed highly indicative of a changing tide.
First off, we have Outstanding Animated Series, a field so transformed in this age that Primetime only needs a single category after much of the way things are done got spun off into the Children and Family Emmys while Primetime discontinued the Short-Form category. This year, the Blue Eye Samurai episode "The Tale of the Ronin and the Bride" won the category. The Netflix series is co-created by Amber Noizumi and Michael Green, with Jane Wu serving as supervising director and producer. Green directed the episode, Noizumi wrote it, and is additionally credited to Erwin Stoff as executive producer, Nick Read as producer, and Michael Greenholt as animation director. That’s the show’s fourth Emmy win, with three juried selections for Individual Achievement in Animation: Brian Kesinger for Character Design on "Nothing Broken", Toby Wilson for Production Design on "The Great Fire Of 1657", and Ryan O'Loughlin for Storyboard on "Hammerscale". Its competition was the X-Men ‘97 episode “Remember It”, the Bob’s Burgers episode “The Amazing Rudy”, The Simpsons episode “Night of the Living Wage”, and “The Signal” from the canceled Max series Scavengers Reign which is getting broader exposure on Netflix, possibly enough for a second life. Blue Eye Samurai lost Outstanding Sound Editing for a Comedy or Drama Series (Half-Hour) and Animation, for the episode "All Evil Dreams and Angry Words" to The Bear’s “Forks”. Myron Nettinga, Paulette Lifton, Sam Hayward, Jared Dwyer, Andrew Miller, Johanna Turner, Justin Helle, Iko Kagasoff, Stefan Fraticelli, Jason Charbonneau were nominated.
Maya Rudolph alone was nominated for four awards, including Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series, starring as in the Apple TV+ series Loot, but that’s on the main show, which means three of them were taken care of at the Creatives. She won her fourth Emmy for Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance as Connie the Hormone Monstress on Big Mouth out of five nominations. Her one loss was to Chadwick Boseman as Star Lord T’Challa on What If…?, specifically “What If... T'Challa Became a Star-Lord?”. Rudolph’s winning episode this year was “The Ambition Gremlin”. She defeated Hank Azaria as Moe Szyslak in The Simpsons episode “Cremains of the Day”, Alex Borstein as Lois Griffin in the Family Guy episode "Teacher's Heavy Pet", Sterling K. Brown as Angstrom Levy / Angstrom #646 on the Invincible episode "I Thought You Were Stronger", and Hannah Waddingham as Deliria in the Krapopolis episode “Big Man on Hippocampus” (boy does that title sound familiar).
Rudolph’s two defeats come at the hands of Hulu powerhouses, though it was mopping the floor on the drama side too with Shōgun. The Bear swept Guest in a Comedy Series, with Jon Bernthal on the men’s side and most pertinently Jamie Lee Curtis as Donna Berzatto in “Fishes”. She not only went up against Rudolph’s Saturday Night Live hosting gig, but Kristen Wiig’s as well. Also defeated were Olivia Colman for The Bear as Chef Terry in “Forks”, Kaitlin Olson on Hacks as DJ Vance in “The Roast of Deborah Vance", and Da’Vine Joy Randolph as Donna Williams in the Only Murders in the Building episode "Sitzprobe". Finally.Rudolph is nominated for Outstanding Music and Lyrics as a credited lyricist on her “Mother” song in her SNL monologue with Mike DiCenzo, Jake Nordwind, and Auguste White, where Eli Brueggemann did the music. They were up against fellow nominees Sara Bareilles for Girls5eva‘s “The Medium Time” in “New York”; The Tattooist of Auschwitz sixth episode's “Love Will Survive” by Hans Zimmer, Kara Talve, Walter Afanasieff and Charlie Midnight, and “No Use” by John Hawkes in True Detective: Night Country‘s fifth episode.
The winner was Only Murders in the Building’s Benj Pasek, Justin Paul, Marc Shaiman & Scott Wittman for “Which of the Pickwick Triplets Did It?”, which Steve Martin’s Charles-Haden Savage works to master over several episodes in the third season. “It’s obviously thrilling and very wild to think about,” Pasek described backstage about his and Paul’s accomplishment. “I think the getting to this alongside two of our musical heroes, Marc and Scott, who gave us our very first job in television is what makes it most meaningful.” The duo’s journey also consists of a best original song Oscar for “City of Stars” from La La Land, a best musical theater album Grammy for Dear Evan Hansen, as well as its Tony win for best original score. They would double up on Grammys, winning best compilation soundtrack Grammy for The Greatest Showman, as well as Tonys, winning best musical Tony for producing A Strange Loop.
The Star Wars series Ahsoka was nominated for five awards: “Part One: Master and Apprentice” for Outstanding Period Or Fantasy/Sci-Fi Hairstyling, “Part Four: Fallen Jedi” competed for Outstanding Sound Editing (and lost), and "Part Eight: The Jedi, the Witch, and the Warlord" was nominated for Outstanding Sci-Fi/Fantasy Costumes (the team of Shawna Trpcic, who passed away in October 2023, Elissa Alcala, and Devon Patterson) and Outstanding Prosthetic Makeup (the team consisting of Alexei Dmitriew, Cristina Waltz, Ana Gabriela Quinonez Urrego, J. Alan Scott, Ian Goodwin, Cale Thomas, Alex Perrone, and Scott Stoddard). And of those two, they won the former! Which is nice.
Finally, we have Outstanding Television Movie, where the film studio-owned streamers now send the theatrical-caliber Oscar longshots for a chance at glory. Hocus Pocus 2 and Prey were among the nominees last year that lost to Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. It’s the category that Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers won the year before. It’s become quite the wild card category. This year’s nominees were Mr. Monk's Last Case: A Monk Movie from Peacock, Netflix’s Unfrosted starring Jerry Seinfeld, as well as Scoop, the dramatic retelling of the securing and filming the 2019 BBC television interview of Prince Andrew, Red, White & Royal Blue from Prime Video, and the winner is Hulu's Quiz Lady, directed by Jessica Yu and produced by stars Sandra Oh, Awkwafina and Will Ferrell. Their fellow producers were Jessica Elbaum, Maggie Haskins, Itay Reiss, and the film’s writer Jen D'Angelo with executive producers Alex Brown and Erika Hampson. Their costars were Jason Schwartzman, Holland Taylor, Tony Hale, and Jon "Dumbfoundead" Park.
Sources: Animation Magazine, The Hollywood Reporter, Vanity Fair
The animated "Shogun" (as I've been thinking of "Blue Eyed Samurai") comes out with a win- with Netflix taking the piss out of the FOX establishment.