Comedy Central’s long-running adult cartoon, South Park, and Cartoon Network’s animated micro-series, Star Wars: Clone Wars, came out on top in the animation category on Sunday when the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences awarded the 2004-2005 Creative Arts Primetime Emmys. Part of the 57th Annual Emmy Awards, the event was held at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.
Produced and directed by Samurai Jack creator Genndy Tartakovsky, Star Wars Clone Wars Volume 2 (chapters 21-25) employs stylized 2D animation to fill fans in on what happens between the second and third episodes of George Lucas’ blockbuster film series. The show was named Outstanding Animated Program (one hour or more), beating out Animal Planet’s Dragons: Fantasy Made Real.
For animated programming less than one hour, South Park took the cake for the episode "Best Friends Forever." Created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the satirical comedy series about four kids living in a messed-up small town in Colorado was recently picked up for three more years. Also nominated in the category were FOX’s Family Guy ("North by North Quahog"), Cartoon Network’s Samurai Jack ("Episode XLIX"), The Simpsons ("Future Drama") and SpongeBob SquarePants ("Fear of a Krabby Patty/Shell of a Man").
Meanwhile, HBO’s animated preschool series, Classical Baby, took Outstanding Children’s Program, as did Nickelodeon’s Nick News with Linda Ellerbee: Never Again? From the Holocaust to the Sudan. Also up for the award were A&E’s Pride, Disney Channel’s That’s So Raven and Nickelodeon’s Zoey 101.
Classical Baby animator Barbara Wierzchowska was one of the artists recognized for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation. The others were Gordon Hammond for character design on Nickelodeon’s The Fairly OddParents ("Shelf Life"), Mike Moon for art direction on Cartoon Network’s Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends ("House of Bloos"), series creator Craig McCracken for character design on Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends ("House of Bloos"), Ed baker for storyboards on Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends ("World Wide Wabbit"), Frederick Gardner for background key design on Cartoon Network’s The PowerPuff Girls ("West in Pieces"), Bryan Andrews for storyboards on Samurai Jack ("Episode IVIX") and Justin Thompson for background key design on Star Wars: Clone Wars (Chapters 21-25).
The award for Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Series went to ABC’s hit series, Lost (Pilot-Parts 1 &2). Work on the show was overseen by visual effects supervisors Kevin Blank and Mitch Suskin. Meanwhile, the HBO biopic, The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, was honored for vfx in a miniseries, movie or special. Joe Pavlo helmed the effects work on that production.
Emmys in 27 other categories will be presented during the 2005 Primetime Emmy Awards telecast on Sunday, Sept. 18, at 8 p.m. on CBS. For a full list of winners and nominees, see www.emmys.org.
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