We're absolutely glee-ridden!
By Pahull Bains
Date September 21, 2020
Schitt’s Creek swept the Comedy category at the 2020 Emmys last night so first things first—a toast!
The 72nd Emmy Awards were unusual in many respects right off the bat. Due to the coronavirus, all the nominees—spread out across 10 countries and 20 cities—stayed home (or got together in small, socially-distanced groups), Jimmy Kimmel hosted the event alone in an empty room, and winners were handed their statues by presenters in hazmat tuxedoes. But amid even these most unusual circumstances of the 2020 Emmys, the Schitt’s Creek team managed to make some history of their own.
The Canadian series became the first show to win all four of the comedy acting categories—Best Actress (Catherine O’Hara), Best Actor (Eugene Levy), Best Supporting Actor (Dan Levy) and Best Supporting Actress (Annie Murphy). It also won the awards for Best Writer (Dan Levy), Best Director (Dan Levy and Andrew Cividino), and Best Comedy Series, making it the first show to sweep the entire comedy category (and which basically meant the 2020 Emmys turned into The Schitt’s Creek Show for the first hour).
The winners ripped off their masks and made impassioned speeches from their little gathering in Toronto, where many of the cast members, including Noah Reid and Karen Robinson, were present.
“Our show at its core is about the transformational effects of love and acceptance, and that is something we need more of now than we ever needed before,” Levy said as he and his father accepted the best comedy series award.
Earlier in the week, the show also took home the Best Casting and Best Contemporary Costumes prizes, bringing its total to nine and breaking the record of eight that The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel won in 2018 and 2019. The 2020 Emmys mark the first acting wins for comedy legends O’Hara and Levy, who had previously won writing Emmys for their work on SCTV.
“I will be forever grateful to Eugene and Daniel Levy for bestowing upon me the opportunity to play a woman of a certain age, my age, who gets to fully be her ridiculous self,” said the 66 year-old actress during her acceptance speech.
Other standout winners from the night included Zendaya who, at 24, became the youngest person ever to win the Outstanding Lead Actress prize for Drama. HBO’s Watchmen took home the maximum number of awards last night—a total of 11—including Outstanding Limited Series, Lead Actress (Regina King) and Supporting Actor (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II). See the full list of winners here.
Once again, let’s give it up for the Roses. They always did know how to thrive under strange circumstances.