Sesame and this year's Emmys

[dwmckim]

Outstanding Preschool Children's Series

Outstanding Achievement in Costume Design/Styling

Outstanding Directing in a Children's Series

Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation – Peter De Seve, "Abby's Flying Fairy School" character designer

Outstanding Achievement in Multiple Camera Editing

Outstanding Writing in a Children's Series

Outstanding Performer in a Children's Series – Kevin Clash & Joey Mazzarino (tie!)

(No wins for Sid the Science Kid)

 

[Drtooth]

You know, if they keep killing soap operas the way they are, I think they gotta disband the Daytimes and just give the kid's shows stuff at the regular Emmys' technical awards.

Really, Judge Programming doesn't deserve to be recognized. And they have to develop some sort of Daytime Razzies and give one to Maury Povich. We need the world to tell him that he's unwelcome on television with his slap dash cheap programming.

But congrats to Sesame Street.

 

[zns]

It's great that Sesame Street is still the best loved children's show on tv. On a personal note, I was rooting for Caroll Spinney. But still, great resutls.

 

[Drtooth]

Hey, D.W.... what's that unfair regulation that the Daytime Emmys have again? For those of us with short term memory.

 

[dwmckim]

I was pretty tired when i posted the winners' list that i actually had a little mini-review/rant about this year's ceremony preceeding it, but i must have accidentally clipped it all out when i was editing my cut and paste job.

But basically, as great as Sesame's wins were, if you didn't tune in to the awards you missed absolutely nothing! NONE of the childrens' programming awards or even a single mention of the genre was made during the whole ceremony! Every single one of the childrens categories were given out during the unaired Creative Arts ceremony held a few nights prior. For this and other reasons, this year's telecast was The Worst Daytime Emmys i've ever watched. In addition, there was no mention of any of the Creative Arts winners during the telecast AND practically every single news write up didn't even bother to list the complete roster of winners...just the ones they showed on television. Isn't that what news reports are supposed to do - give the full story? So essentially, if anyone cares about the more technical or less glamerous parts of daytime programming and/or childrens' television, you have to jump through hoops doing your own research to find out what happened/who won. Sesame and all of the childrens' genre was completely whitewashed and invisible this year. Which actually is more insulting given how the daytime drama genre (which usually gets the most focus at the Daytime Emmys) is quickly dying due to the number of them being whittled down and the quality of those left diminishing. One would think MORE attention would be given to the broader spectrum of genres that make up daytime programming but instead they swept them under the rug! AND...it's not like they ADDED back anything that had been amiss last year like clips of the nominated actors' work or stuff like that. Bad bad year for the Daytime Emmys.

As per the rule that has earned the ire of daytime fans, it seems like every year the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences makes some tweak or another to the methods by which shows/nominees are voted upon, nominated, or even PRE-nominated. These are often meant as fixes to improve the process but more often than not, they make things worse and make the resulting awards more of a joke. Last year, the major change they made was that nominees could only submit ONE SINGLE episode for their judging reel. (Unless you are a half hour show competing against hour long or longer shows. Then you could submit a second). So a year's worth of work is represented by only one single episode. Being judged by a single episode means one doesn't get the benefit of being able to display much range by having something very different to contrast the first episode with. A typical daytime drama has between 30-40 cast members and is only 36 minutes when you take out commercials. An actor's total scenes in an episode may take from 1/3-1/6 of that 36 minutes as the episode cuts between various scenes featuring different characters. Not only can a panel not make a very informed decision based on such a small showcase but it also has the effect of writers creating "stunt" episodes written for the sole purpose of being The Single Episode an actor or director or writing staff, etc can submit for their reel.

This is why with Sesame Street's current format, the current system biases itself for a Kevin Clash win in the performers' category as far as Sesame Street actors go. Every episode has a 20 minute showcase of Kevin's work at the end plus probably a large portion of his work in the other 40 minutes. Most of the other Muppeteers or human cast only have the benefit of the 10 minute street story and maybe another 1-3 minute sketch to show their ability. The only other perfomer who stood any kind of chance this year due to SST's own 40th season format change was Joey Mazzarino...and even then unless he did end up tying with Kevin, it probably wouldn't have happened. (Don't get me wrong - i don't mean to imply neither performer is worthy of winning or wish to take anything away from Kevin and especially Joey's well-deserved wins, just that the system by which they're judged mixed with SST's current format doesn't allow any of the other cast members a fair shot no matter how outstanding or talented they are.)

 

[Drtooth]

I was pretty tired when i posted the winners' list that i actually had a little mini-review/rant about this year's ceremony preceeding it, but i must have accidentally clipped it all out when i was editing my cut and paste job.

But basically, as great as Sesame's wins were, if you didn't tune in to the awards you missed absolutely nothing! NONE of the childrens' programming awards or even a single mention of the genre was made during the whole ceremony! Every single one of the childrens categories were given out during the unaired Creative Arts ceremony held a few nights prior. For this and other reasons, this year's telecast was The Worst Daytime Emmys i've ever watched. In addition, there was no mention of any of the Creative Arts winners during the telecast AND practically every single news write up didn't even bother to list the complete roster of winners...just the ones they showed on television. Isn't that what news reports are supposed to do - give the full story? So essentially, if anyone cares about the more technical or less glamerous parts of daytime programming and/or childrens' television, you have to jump through hoops doing your own research to find out what happened/who won. Sesame and all of the childrens' genre was completely whitewashed and invisible this year. Which actually is more insulting given how the daytime drama genre (which usually gets the most focus at the Daytime Emmys) is quickly dying due to the number of them being whittled down and the quality of those left diminishing. One would think MORE attention would be given to the broader spectrum of genres that make up daytime programming but instead they swept them under the rug! AND...it's not like they ADDED back anything that had been amiss last year like clips of the nominated actors' work or stuff like that. Bad bad year for the Daytime Emmys.

That sounds pathetic. Glad I watched Family Guy instead. But hey, it just goes to show you how important kids are when it comes to television. Sure, we give a crap when they advertise candy, but when it comes to where it fits in the grand scheme of things, it's a completely unimportant demographic unless they're buying toys.

Maybe you can tell me as you're someone who watched... was the whole focus on the thing about how they were in Vegas? I tuned in for a second between commercials, and they started talking about Vegas and showing a little travelogue. And why the heck is travelogue even in the Emmy category?

 

[MelissaY1]

I wasted two hours on the Daytime Emmys show this year thinking as usual they would show the children's categories or have someone from Sesame show up whether it was a Muppet or a puppeteer or one of the writers.

Yep, absolutely NOTHING on these categories. And even the award show overall this year was pretty lame. The only real high point was the tribute to Dick Clark and American Bandstand. I'm not sure if its' because like has already been said, the soap operas are slowly going away and have less relevance, or the fact that it was held in Vegas this year instead of L.A. or NYC. It was just an odd show. The Daytime Emmys were always one show I found mildly entertaining next to the Tonys which is the only awards show I seem to enjoy these days and this just fell really flat.

 

[MelissaY1]

That sounds pathetic. Glad I watched Family Guy instead. But hey, it just goes to show you how important kids are when it comes to television. Sure, we give a crap when they advertise candy, but when it comes to where it fits in the grand scheme of things, it's a completely unimportant demographic unless they're buying toys.

Maybe you can tell me as you're someone who watched... was the whole focus on the thing about how they were in Vegas? I tuned in for a second between commercials, and they started talking about Vegas and showing a little travelogue. And why the heck is travelogue even in the Emmy category?

No travelogue wasn't a category. They were giving a tour about the Hilton Hotel that the ceremony was held in for some reason to waste time I guess. They showed quick glimpses of the other hotels on the Las Vegas strip including the Luxor which I stayed in this past November and will never go to again.

 

[Drtooth]

Yep, absolutely NOTHING on these categories. And even the award show overall this year was pretty lame. The only real high point was the tribute to Dick Clark and American Bandstand. I'm not sure if its' because like has already been said, the soap operas are slowly going away and have less relevance, or the fact that it was held in Vegas this year instead of L.A. or NYC. It was just an odd show. The Daytime Emmys were always one show I found mildly entertaining next to the Tonys which is the only awards show I seem to enjoy these days and this just fell really flat.

As I said, once the last soap opera is taken behind the barn and shot, they should completely disband the Daytimes and just award that stuff at the "Creative Arts" (read losers that no one cares about and we don't feel like giving attention to 'cause it's not flashy). I'm not up on all the latest categories, but they shouldn't honor Judge programming at all, and they needs ta give Maury Povich a sign that he's a waste of human life.

No travelogue wasn't a category. They were giving a tour about the Hilton Hotel that the ceremony was held in for some reason to waste time I guess. They showed quick glimpses of the other hotels on the Las Vegas strip including the Luxor which I stayed in this past November and will never go to again.

Sooo... commercial for Vegas disguised as an awards show is what I'm getting.

Dw... you NEED to give us more of your take on this. You REALLY have a passion for this subject matter, and I enjoyed reading every bit of your editorial.

 

[dwmckim]

Can't add much more to what's been said. The whole ceremony was a tribute to Las Vegas for some bizarre reason. I guess they wanted to have it in an "exciting" location that wasn't too far from California since all the remaining soaps (except One Life to Live) shoot in L.A. where it used to be half and half CA/NY. But the whole time they would do some kind of feature on Las Vegas or even the one to two minutes(!) it would take for some outlandish Las Vegas performer to bring out the envelope with the winner in it, i'd just be thinking WHY can't you be using all this wasted time to show clips of the nominated actors - OR say who won the Creative Arts Emmys - OR announce winners of the major childrens categories awards?

I was at least relieved that gave As the World Turns a farewell tribute. The way things were going, i wasn't sure if they'd do that or not. Also hated how the Lifetime Achievement Award to soap creator/writer Agnes Nixon was essentially a big All My Children tribute with the other soaps she created (including One Life to Live which is still on the air) pretty much tossed aside as a footnote!

Since i'm one of those rare types who usually tune in for two reasons (my Sesame/Henson fandom and my One Life to Live fandom), i wasn't expecting this year to be a good one for OLTL fans. The show itself really took a major nosedive in quality the second half of last year and i was actually a bit pleased that it wasn't even nominated for Best Show or Best Writing this time around since they did so many deplorable things writing-wise that were out and out insulting to its audience. But i was still rooting for the three nominated actors and for the directing award. (I REALLY wanted to see Scott Clifton win an Emmy after he was among a major actor purge this spring where the show dumped a whole bunch of well liked actors - it would have been a nice little F.U. to the show that unceremoniously let him go in the same way where about four years ago, all three of the actors who won awards for the show were ones who had since been let go by the time of the awards ceremony.)

But this year, (after two years in a row of winning the highest number of total awards) they only won a grand total of one award...for casting. I actually have mixed feelings about that since one of the worst things they did last year was bring on a previously unknown-to-him daughter for Todd Manning who ended up being OLDER than his son Jack (which was totally absurd due to the whole backstory of her conception was so closely tied with an attempted kidnapping of his kids Starr and Jack). Fans ended up dubbing her "The Seven Year Old Teenager". However, given how that decision to make her unexplicably that old was most likely made by the producer/writers, i won't hold it against the casting people who would have been instructed by them to cast Danielle as a 16 year old, especially because the actress they did cast looks amazingly like a genetic cross between the two actors who play her parents. Plus this is the team who cast Scott Clifton, Brett Claywell, Gossip Girl's Amanda Setton, the first ever successful recast of Rachel Gannon played by Daphne Duplaix (all of whom are now off the show to viewers' chagrin) and giving us Shenell Edmonds as Destiny Evans - a heavyset African-American teen character not used as some shortterm comedy relief part which is pretty much never seen on soaps. So 7yr old Teen aside, the casting crew did earn its award for their work last year. And oh yeah, they also cast Matt Walton as Eli too (non soap fans may know him as the current Old Navy spokesman) which is the first really great love interest Blair's had in ages and they brought back original actress Gina Tognoni as Kelly Cramer! Still, like i mentioned i would have liked to see Scott Clifton pick up a statue as a "parting gift" and it was kind of sad to see Bree Williamson not walk away with an Emmy after being a major contender two years in a row. I also thought Brian Kerwin was deserving as well (he turned in some stellar work this fall) but i also knew that given the single episode reel rule, he wouldn't have ended up winning it.

My two other pet peeves this year: no preshow program and those idiotic text polls where viewers could vote for things like their all-time fave talk show host or their all-time fave soap actor (with just four pre-selected choices...HELLO - NONE of the above...i wanted to text a write in for Robin Strasser!) which were pointless anyway because i don't know where/when the results of them were given anyway.

As for next year, if Ilene Kristen and Hilary B Smith don't at least score nominations, i am SO over the Daytime Emmys for good! And while OLTL as a whole still continues to be a hot mess this year, i'm predicting they'll submit Bo and Nora's wedding for Best Show and Best Writing and end up actually winning both awards. (I still crack up thinking of "...to join my paw, Bo Buchanan and his lovely ex-wife, Nora Hanon Gannon Buchanan Hanon Buchanan Buchanan...if you're thinking "Colson" you're wrong, that marriage was annulled...")