Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Our Picks for the 2012 Creatve Arts Emmys

Photo by Pop Culture Passionistas

In just a few days the Passionistas will put on their Sunday best and head off to our first Emmy day of the season. The Creative Arts Emmys are this Saturday, September 15, and the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences will honor the men and women behind the scenes of your favorite shows. Plus there’s a few on-camera names sprinkled in to make it exciting.

There are over 75 awards given out on the precursor to the big night, so we can’t go through them all — or we could, but we’re guessing you wouldn’t read it. So instead we’ve chosen our highlights for who we hope will walk away with the golden statues on Saturday night.

Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series
Glee — Dot-Marie Jones as Coach Shannon Beiste
Saturday Night Live — Maya Rudolph, Host
Saturday Night Live — Melissa McCarthy, Host
30 Rock — Elizabeth Banks as Avery Jessup
30 Rock — Margaret Cho as Kim Jong-il
Two and a Half Men — Kathy Bates as Charlie Harper

While we absolutely loved Melissa McCarthy hosting SNL this year, and Margaret Cho as Kim Jong-Il was pretty hysterical, our vote goes to Dot Marie Jones on Glee. Sure the show itself has seen better seasons, but Dot had a great story line dealing with domestic violence and brought many a tear to our eyes doing it.

Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series
Curb Your Enthusiasm — Michael J. Fox as Himself
Modern Family — Greg Kinnear as Tad
Nurse Jackie — Bobby Cannavale as Dr. Mike Cruz
Saturday Night Live — Jimmy Fallon, Host
30 Rock — Will Arnett as Devon Banks
30 Rock — Jon Hamm as Abner and David Brinkley

We’re glad Michael J. Fox is coming back to TV next year, so he can get another shot at more Emmys. And while we’re big fans of both Will Arnett and Jimmy Fallon, we have to pick Jon Hamm for his 30 Rock bits. We adore him when he embraces his comedic side and besides he won’t ever win for Mad Men until Bryan Cranston is off the list and Breaking Bad is off the air.


Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series
The Good Wife — Martha Plimpton as Patti Nyholm
Grey's Anatomy — Loretta Devine as Adele Webber
Harry's Law — Jean Smart as D.A. Roseanna Remmick
Mad Men — Julia Ormond as Marie Calvet
Shameless — Joan Cusack as Sheila Jackson
Smash — Uma Thurman as Rebecca Duvall

Although she took the statue last year for the same series and the same role, our money’s on Loretta Devine to go two for two for Grey's Anatomy. Her turn as the Alzheimer stricken wife of Dr. Webber is both heartbreaking and enthralling.

Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series
Breaking Bad — Mark Margolis as Tio Salamanca
The Good Wife — Dylan Baker as Colin Sweeney
The Good Wife — Michael J. Fox as Louis Canning
Justified — Jeremy Davies as Dickie Bennett
Mad Men — Ben Feldman as Michael Ginsberg
Parenthood — Jason Ritter as Mark Cyr

Okay, we admit it, this is just a vote for one of our favorite actors, not necessarily for the best performance in the group. But we’ve been Jason Ritter groupies since Joan of Arcadia and we’d just like to see him win. Dad, John, would be smiling from above.

Outstanding Variety Series
The Colbert Report 
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart 
Jimmy Kimmel Live 
Late Night with Jimmy Fallon 
Real Time with Bill Maher 
Saturday Night Live 

In our books Colbert and Stewart always cancel each other out because we can’t pick between them. And besides, Jimmy Fallon has really come in to his own this year and finally seems comfortable in his own skin in the late night slot. And now that he’s moved to 11:30 and is fighting with the big boys, he deserves the boost to send him into the ring.

Outstanding Reality Program
Antiques Roadshow 
Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution 
MythBusters 
Shark Tank 
Undercover Boss 
Who Do You Think You Are?

This is a really tough one for us because, as you know, we love us some reality TV and a few of our faves are on the list. We get sucked into Who Do You Think You Are? no matter who the featured celeb. And we applaud Jamie Oliver for taking on his fight with the LAUSD to get healty food for our kids. But we can’t get enough of the sharks. The thrill of seeing which entrepreneurs will get investments and the competition that goes on among the sharks leave us screaming at our sets every week.

Outstanding Reality-Competition Program
The Amazing Race
Dancing with the Stars
Project Runway
So You Think You Can Dance
Top Chef 
The Voice

If you thought the last category was difficult for us, this one is literally impossible. If it were left to us there would be a six way tie. But since that is not possible and we know how difficult The Amazing Race is to produce, we’re guesssing it will, once again, walk off with the title, which it has for 12 of the 13 years that this category has existed.

Outstanding Host For A Reality or Reality-Competition Program
The Amazing Race — Phil Keoghan, Host
American Idol — Ryan Seacrest, Host
Betty White’s Off Their Rockers — Betty White, Host
Dancing with the Stars — Tom Bergeron, Host
So You Think You Can Dance — Cat Deeley, Host

Can we do a write in vote? No Jeff Probst? Are they mad at him for doing a daytime talk show? While we can get behind any of the hosts on this list, no one does reality hosting better than Probst and we’re shocked he’s been excluded. That said, we’ll go with Betty White since she’s the Emmy Golden Girl.

Outstanding Choreography
Dancing with the Stars — "Without You" — Travis Wall, Teddy Forance and Nick Lazzarini
Smash — "National Pastime" / "Let's Be Bad" / "Never Met a Wolf" — Joshua Bergasse, Choreographer
So You Think You Can Dance — "In This Shirt" / "Turning Tables" / "Heart Asks for Pleasure First" — Stacey Tookey, Choreographer
So You Think You Can Dance — "Misty Blue" / "Velocity" — Christopher Scott, Choreographer
So You Think You Can Dance — "Whatever Lola Wants" / "Please Mr. Jailor" / "Where Do I Begin" — Spencer Liff, Choreographer

All great dances and another difficult pick. Once again we’re taking this one a little personally because we had a lovely interview with Spencer Liff a few weeks ago and he stole a little piece of our hearts. Plus, he’s a Broadway choreographer and two Great White Way-loving girls like us have to support that.

Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics
The Heart Of Christmas — Song Title: "The Heart Of" — Music & Lyrics by Matthew West
Raising Hope — Song Title: "Welcome Back To Hope"— Music & Lyrics by Matthew W. Thompson
Saturday Night Live — Host: Jason Segel — Song Title: "I Can't Believe I'm Hosting" — Music by Eli Brueggemann Lyrics by Seth Meyers and John Mulaney
Smash — Song Title: "Let Me Be Your Star" — Music & Lyrics by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman
65th Annual Tony Awards — Song Title: "It's Not Just for Gays Anymore" — Music by Adam Schlesinger and Lyrics by David Javerbaum

We thoroughly enjoyed Neil Patrick Harris’ opening number on the Tony’s last year, but NPH gets a lot of love already. Plus while we found some fault with Smash in general, there was no denying that the music was astounding. We had low expectations when we heard there was going to be an original musical on TV, but it exceeded anything we could have hoped for. Marc Shaiman is a genius and deserves the statue.

The Creative Arts Emmys will are being taped on Saturday, September 15 at the Nokia Theater and will be aired on ReelzChannel on September 22 at 8 p.m. EST / 7 p.m Central.


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