Yahoo Lifestyle Emmy Producers Address Reunions, Those Empty Seats & That Odd Johnnie Walker Moment: “Nobody Went Off The Rails”
The 76th annual Primetime Emmys telecast Sunday clocked in at 3 hours and 8 minutes — not a bad finish for a tightly controlled show that emphasized nostalgia and inclusivity over politics and the culture wars.
Here, executive producers Jesse Collins, Dionne Harmon and Jeannae Rouzan-Clay answer our burning questions about the telecast on ABC, including why half of the seats at the Peacock Theater were empty at one point and why Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Taylor Zachary Perez had that awkward moment at the backstage bar.
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DEADLINE: Let’s talk about the time at which the show finished.
DIONNE HARMON: We were a little over three hours. I think it’s a really good shine. The show being a tiny bit long didn’t feel like it to the viewers. The worst feeling is people thinking, “Oh my God, when is this ever going to end?” Playing people off is a really hard thing to do because it’s everyone’s moment and they have such important things to say. But I think that people were really great with their speeches. Nobody went off the rails and did a 10-minute crazy speech. I thought people followed the rules and were pretty respectful of everyone’s time and the time that they had allotted. And I think that helped a lot.
JEANNAE ROUZAN-CLAY: It was a fun roller coaster to be on, and it felt like it was moving as opposed to getting backed up in places.
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DEADLINE: Some reviews of the show seemed to suggest that all those nostalgic moments were also a way of saying “look at how good TV used to be.: That wasn’t what you were trying to convey, were you?
HARMON: Oh my gosh, no. We wanted to lean into nostalgia because it was something that worked so well in January. So when we talked about the TV moms, for example, we wanted to make sure you had Meredith Baxter, but we also had Susan Kelechi Watson from This is Us. A lot of our presenters are on current shows. I thought that we really balanced what was on right now while also paying homage to the craft over the last 76 years. In general, the whole show is dedicated to what’s on television right now. So I think it gives you a little license to nod to the people whose shoulders that all of these current writers, directors and actors stand on.
DEADLINE: Why not have bigger reunions?
ROUZAN-CLAY: We couldn’t have six or seven presenters on at a time because then the show would have for sure been long. We had a tough job of figuring out how those pairs were going to work while still being current.
DEADLINE: Jesse, what surprised you most about the show?
JESSE COLLINS: I thought we had just some great unexpected wins, some great diversity, some really emotional moments. It proves that you just never know what the voters are going to choose. And we saw that and it was great.
DEADLINE: Any problems we didn’t see on camera? Did anyone lose their pants off stage?
COLLINS: I don’t think anybody lost their pants. We had some challenges with the pop-up mic. We all saw that. But other than that, I think everything rolled along pretty smoothly.
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DEADLINE: About 45 minutes into the show, viewers started tweeting about the theater looking a little sparse with the center area looking half empty. What happened?
COLLINS: What happens on this show is that we have large groups of people winning.
HARMON: 30 people go to the stage!
COLLINS: And that tends to be in the middle of an act. So if there’s two, sometimes three awards in an act, which we had, you have two large groups of people that are no longer there and it’s really not feasible to use seat fillers. It kind of causes more disruption and chaos because now you have people doing the, “Excuse me, pardon me, pardon me” while a presenter is trying to do their bit. We haven’t figured out how to crack that code because it’s just the science of the award show. I guess we could try to shoot around it given another opportunity, but it’s tough.
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DEADLINE: What was with the bar skit with Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Taylor Zakhar Perez? Was that cut from a longer sketch?
COLLINS: It was not cut from a longer sketch. It was an integration with Johnnie Walker. These things you will see more and more in award shows. We thought everybody was great in it. It was fun. Johnnie Walker and burgers is a great way to watch the Emmys.
DEADLINE: Did you change anything in the script after the news of the shooting at Trump’s golf course?
COLLINS: No. I mean, that seemed like such a fluid situation. It was best not to comment on something until all the facts were in.
DEADLINE: Did you notice how Bradley Whitford kind of ruined The West Wing reunion by tweeting before the show?
COLLINS: No, no. I thought it was fine. The most important thing is when the wall went up, I felt like the cast got their flowers. Everyone in the audience was just so excited to see them, and that’s what was really important.
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