HBO's The Pacific warms up for Sunday's big show with seven Creative Arts Emmys while Neil Patrick Harris hopes to make it a trifecta
08/23/10 10:57 AM
By ED BARK
The so-called Creative Arts Emmys, bestowed in relative obscurity Saturday night, were dominated by HBO's The Pacific and also marked by a double win for Neil Patrick Harris.
The Pacific won seven of HBO's league-leading 17 Emmys while Harris was honored for both his guest star role in Fox's Glee and his hosting of the 63rd annual Tony Awards on CBS. Harris also is nominated as best supporting actor in a comedy series for CBS' How I Met Your Mother. That award will be included in the bigger, showier Sunday, Aug. 29th ceremony, hosted by Jimmy Fallon on NBC.
The creative arts Emmys are primarily for what the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences terms the "key technical disciplines and behind-the-scenes crafts essential to television production." But a number of acting and best program awards also are in the mix, including guest star turns in both comedy and drama series.
Harris was joined in the comedy category by Betty White, who won for her hosting of NBC's Saturday Night Live. The honorees for drama were John Lithgow for his season-long turn as the "Trinity Killer" on Showtime's Dexter (his fifth Emmy overall) and Ann-Margret winning for the first time as an alcoholic hoarder on NBC's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
ABC's Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution was named "Outstanding Reality Program" while Jeff Probst won for the third straight time as host of a reality or reality-competition series. The "Reality-Competition" series award, won every time since its 2003 inception by CBS' The Amazing Race, will be part of Sunday's Emmy show.
In other Creative Arts results, Ken Burns' latest PBS production, The National Parks: America's Best Idea, won for best non-fiction series and HBO's Teddy: In His Own Words was named the top non-fiction special.
Emmy's "Outstanding Children's Program" award went to The Disneys Channel's Wizards of Wavery Place: The Movie; Linda Ellerbee's Nick News special, The Face of Courage: Kids Living with Cancer, won for best non-fiction children's program.
Awards for best animation programs were won by the ABC Christmas special, Disney's Prep & Landing, and Cartoon Network's Robot Chicken.
The Emmys for "Outstanding Casting" in drama, comedy and a miniseries movie or special respectively went to AMC's Mad Men, ABC's Modern Family and The Pacific.
ABC won a total of 15 trophies to finish close behind HBO. Fox had 9 Emmys, followed by CBS, NBC and PBS (7 apiece); Showtime (5); Cartoon Network (4); and AMC and Discovery Channel (2 each). Another nine networks won single Emmys.
The Creative Arts ceremony will be reprised on Friday, Aug. 27th at noon (central) on E! Entertainment Television. For a complete list of winners, go here.