We’ve got a while to wait for the 2008 Emmy awards nominations – they’ll be announced on Thursday, July 16, at 5:35 AM PT from the Goldenson Theatre on the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences plaza in North Hollywood. However, the Emmy talk is already starting in the industry over at Variety. While this story that was featured in Variety recently does not mention the ‘Colbert Report’, specifically, I found it quite interesting considering the topic:
Latenight nominees pen comic intros
Montage creators feel pressure to impress peers
By CHAD GERVICHMost staffs begin brainstorming immediately after nomination announcements. While packages are short, there’s much to do — and many limitations.
“You have to read the names of the writers, be funny, and hopefully the payoff has something to do with Dave,” Stangel says. “We produce two to three (ideas). … Dave will give notes, and ultimately, Dave will pick it.”
Producers also have financial considerations. A few years ago, “SNL” flew Chris Kattan, writer Paula Pell and a costumer to L.A. to film Kattan dressed as each writer. Today, that wouldn’t happen.
“Times are different,” says “SNL” alum Tina Fey. “They’d be like, ‘What?! No … here’s a handheld camera. Walk around the office; you’ll think of something.’ ”
Some packages cast celebrities, as when “Late Show” enlisted Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) to whack the entire staff. Others use nonrealistic representations, like the time when “SNL” transformed its writers into Wii avatars.
“It’s a lot to cram into 30 seconds,” Stangel says. “Hopefully … what you come up with is better than what you did last year.”
The anxiety culminates at the telecast, when America sees which package gets the biggest laugh.
“I really want to beat ’60 Minutes,’” Meyers deadpans. “They’re so pretentious. I don’t think they think it’s supposed to be funny.”
I loved the video last year, and it has nothing to do with Stephen showing up in boxers and a shotgun at the end. I can’t wait to see what the ‘Colbert Report’ writers come up this year if they’re nominated. In case you missed them the first time around, here are the writing nomination videos for the three years that the ‘Colbert Report’ has been nominated.
thanks for this story/video compilation. i LOVE the comedy writers’ intros, have for years.
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I love those intros so much. They’re always so funny. I definitely look forward to seeing what each show came up with this year.
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I like that the thumbnails of the embedded videos are of Late Night with Conan O’Brien.
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A real highlight of the Emmy awards is the writers videos – I love TCR’s 2007 one, with the writers all hitting him. Laura’s bottle over the head and Alison’s grapefruit in the face made me laugh.
And what do you mean by “if they’re nominated”?
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My personal favorite has to be Conan O’Brien’s 2006 one. TDS 2007 is also pretty good.
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DB, thanks for the clips. With all the news going on in the world, I needed some laughs.
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cool..i live like..a minute away from the Academy of arts and science plaza…Can’t wait for the actual Emmys though!
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You should totally camp out the night before with a cut-out of each of the Colbert Report writers! I’ll keep you company…in spirit. =]
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Are the writers or anyone actually gonna be thr during the nomination ceremony?
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I love these! The few times I caught the Emmys, I totally enjoyed the “I do not recall remembering Jon Stewart” of TDS and all three TCR videos. :)
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haha, I like how Stephen shows up with a gun two out of the three years. and all of them either show or imply violence! :D it’s also kinda cool how the 2006 one still had Stephen Colbert on TDS too.
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I love their intros! They’ve got a lot to live up to with all these vids you’ve posted here, but I do believe they can do it. After all, they seem to have gotten better and better each year! :)
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This is always my favorite part of the Emmys. I seem to recall reading that now that they’ve split the category for writers into “variety series” and “variety special”, they are going to alternate which one is part of the Primetime Broadcast. I’m not sure if these means that we’ll get the series in the odd years or even years.
On a side note, I do love Conan and Late Night, but watching all 3 of these in row, where the joke was in showing Conan’s writers as people of color (Indian workers in a call center, Mexican day laborers, multi-racial adoptees of Angelina Jolie), made me feel a little uncomfortable.
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my prediction is that colbert’s intro will be very much related to the iraq series of shows.
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These are so great! I don’t think I’d ever seen 2006′s intros before so this was a real treat. I *heart* comedy writers.
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So much fun to see these all together. I concur that this is always my favorite part of the Emmy awards.
My fave TCR one is the first one with the bears, for some reason. And I love the TDS one w/ Gonzalez. What a d-bag! And what a way to capitalize on him. :-)
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