“Wounded Knee,” “Planet Earth” and Tony Bennett special take home most Creative Emmys
By Jeffrey Jolson
HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 9/10/07 – While “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” won five Emmys this past weekend, shows that pushed the censors and envelope to the edge, were called when the envelopes were opened at the 58th Annual Creative Emmy Awards, precursor to the Primetime Emmys this Sunday.
Winners included Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg’s hilarious “Dick in a Box” musical skit from Saturday Night Live, Comedy Central’s foul-mouthed fourth graders in “South Park” and Kathy Griffin’s oft raunchy “My Life on the D-List.”
Yet it was standards and practices at the networks, not the Feds, who had the most strikes against them at the Creative Emmys. “Dick in a Box” was bleep when first aired on NBC and later became an Internet staple, was heartily cheered when it won. Samberg said “The moment we came up with this, we were all thinking EMMY! The other thing we were thinking is this young up and comer could use a break. Justin, if you’re out there. Congrats to you kid.”
Backstage, Hollywood Today asked Samberg if a follow-up was planned to the breakaway hit. The quick-witted comic said “We thought of “Balls in a Bucket” but it just wasn’t that catchy.”
The award for outstanding animated program went to “South Park,” known for always pushing the cable TV profanity limits and remembered for the episode when creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone found out they could say “shit” on cable, and went on to say it 162 times in an episode (with a meter running in the corner of the screen). The episode that won the Emmy this year was “Make love not Warcraft,” which spoofs online video gaming. In fact the real online role-playing game it pokes fun at has adopted one of the weapons made up in the South Park episode.
On a slightly different note, one without bleeps in the language, edgy shows with social messages did well. From five-Emmy winner “Wounded Knee,” about government atrocities to Indians in 1890, to the government atrocities to a city in Spike Lee’s “When the Levees Broke” about New Orleans’ Katrina aftermath took home three Emmys.
Several of the winners did not shy from using expletives in their award speeches in the casual party atmosphere of the Creative Emmys at the Shrine Auditorium. They were confident that it could be edited when E! Television pares down the four and a half hour presentation to a two hour show to air this Saturday.
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What will they do with Kathy Griffin’s speech? “Do you believe this shit,” she asked as she came out on stage to accept the Emmy for best reality show. “A lot of people thank Jesus for this, but he didn’t help me a bit. Suck it Jesus, this is my God now!”
There’s no doubt they will keep the acceptance speech from Elaine Stritch, best guest actress in a comedy series for NBC’s “30 Rock.”
Stritch said “I can’t get over that I still feel the way I do, it’s un-fucking-believable,” the three-time Emmy winner said to applause from the audience. “I’m a recovering alcoholic, a riddled diabetic and I’ve got laryngitis … but I just won an Emmy.”
Carlos Mencia hosted the show and did a good job moving the long program along, also with pointed humor.
Saucy satire claymation show “Robot Chicken” was a winner and actor Seth Green, co-creator of Robot Chicken, who explained “I also do a ton of the voices for the show.” He said his problem was not so much with censors as with lawyers. “It takes us six days to do the show, then 90 days to get it approved from legal.”
The other three time winners on the award program were “Jane Eyre” and “Rome.” Top network winners were HBO with 15 statues going into the primetime Emmys, NBC with 12, CBS with 9, Cartoon Network with 8, Fox with 7, PBS with 6 and ABC bringing up the broadcast network rear with 6 awards.