The Academy today released its list of nominations for the 60th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards, airing Sept. 21 on ABC. The animation categories will again be relegated to the Creative Arts ceremony on Sept. 13 at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles, Calif.
In venturing to take a shot at the live action-based Comedy Series category, the producers of Family Guy took the show out of the running for Animated Program (less than one hour). That category will be a showdown between CBS’ Creature Comforts America for the installment ‘Don’t Choke to Death, Please,’ FOX’s King of the Hill for ‘Death Picks Cotton,’ Adult Swim’s Robot Chicken for ‘Robot Chicken: Star Wars,’ FOX’s The Simpsons for ‘Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind’ and Nickelodeon’s SpongeBob SquarePants for ‘Inmates of Summer/Two Faces of Squidward.’
Despite being short-listed by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences as a contender in the Comedy Series category, FOX’s Family Guy wasn’t able to break the cartoon barrier. The show’s Star Wars spoof, ‘Blue Harvest,’ will instead take on the South Park ‘Imaginationland’ saga and the Warner Bros. Animation movie Justice League: The New Frontier in the category Animated Program (one hour or more).
While SpongeBob will hang with the big boys of primetime and late-night, fellow kid cartoons Camp Lazlo and Chowder, both from Cartoon Network, will compete in the category Special Class Program: Short-Format Animated Programs. Lazlo is nominated for the episode ‘Lazlo’s First Crush,’ and Chowder for ‘Burple Nurples.’
HBO’s Classical Baby (I’m Grown Up Now): The Poetry Show is the only animated production nominated for Children’s Program. The live-action competition comes from the Disney Channel sensations Hannah Montana and High School Musical 2 and The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody, as well as Nickelodeon’s Nick News With Linda Ellerbee: The Untouchable Kids of India.
In the running for Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Series are SCI FI Channel’s Battlestar Galactica for ‘He That Believeth in Me,’ NBC’s Heroes for ‘Four Months Ago,’ Discovery Channel’s Human Body: Pushing The Limits for ‘Strength,’ CBS’ Jericho for ‘Patriots And Tyrants,’ SCI FI Channel’s Stargate Atlantis for ‘Adrift,’ and the pilot episode of FOX’s Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special will go to one of the following nominees: CBS’ Comanche Moon: Part 1, TNT’s The Company: Part 2, HBO’s John Adams ‘Join or Die,’ History Channel’s Life After People and SCI FI Channel’s Tin Man Part 1.
The vfx-laden Tin Man is also nominated for Outstanding Miniseries, and also garnered nominations for a number of disciplines including costuming, sound editing and sound mixing.
Competing for the Outstanding Commercial prize are Hallmark’s Brother of the Bride (PYTKA, Leo Burnett), FedEx’s Carrier Pigeons (MJZ, BBDO), Travelers’ Delivery (MJZ, Fallon), Coca Cola’s It’s Mine (MJZ, Wieden + Kennedy) and Bud Light’s Swear Jar (Hungry Man, DDB).
FOX-TV’s primetime toons Family Guy and The Simpsons also landed nomination in the Outstanding Music Composition for a Series: Original Dramatic Score category for ‘Lois Kills Stewie’ (composed by Ronald Neal Jones) and ‘Treehouse of Horror XVII’ (composed by Alf Clausen) episodes of the series. Disney Channel’s frosh toon Phineas and Ferb was also nominated in the Outstanding Music and Lyrics race for the song ‘I Ain’t Got No Rhythm’ (Music by Danny Jacob, written by Jeff ‘Swampy Marsh, Robert F. Hughes, Martin Olson and Dan Povenmire).
Leslie Iwerks’ popular Starz documentary The Pixar Story also added an Outstanding Nonfiction Special Emmy nomination to its growing list of honors.
To see the complete list of nominations, go to www.emmys.org.
