Weird categories, even weirder nominees, at Creative Arts Emmys

THE Creative Arts Emmys -- the awards for the camera operators, hairstylists, crew technicians, set decorators; in short, all the people whose work you see every week but may take for granted -- will be handed out late Saturday night in Los Angeles.

The big Emmy show is next week on Aug. 29.

But here are some oddities, head-scratchers and I-didn't-know-that twists in the Creative Arts categories, hardly any of which you'll find mentioned anywhere else.

-- Etobicoke, Ont. actor-writer and Kids in the Hall alum Dave Foley is up for outstanding voice-over performance, for the ABC-Disney show Disney Prep & Landing. Other nominees in the category include Seth Green, for Robot Chicken, and Simpsons stalwarts Dan Castellaneta, Hank Azaria and, for her pains as Princess Penelope, Anne Hathaway.

Robot Chicken, by the way, is up for outstanding short-format animated program, for t he episode title, and I'm not making this up, Full-Assed Christmas Special.

In the main event -- outstanding animated program -- three heavyweights will slug it out for the title: The Simpsons, South Park and The Ricky Gervais Show.

Gervais, incidentally, has been tapped to host next year's Golden Globes -- this, after he swore never again. (He was joking, evidently. It's called irony.)

-- You wouldn't judge a book by its cover, so why would you judge a TV show by its sets? Even so, this year's competition for art direction is a toughie. Just try to pick a "best set decoration" winner from these very-different-but-equally-stylish shows: Glee, Heroes, Lost, Modern Family, True Blood and The Tudors.

What, no love here for Mad Men? That ain't right.

-- There may not be an Emmy category for best ensemble performance -- more on that later -- but there is for best casting, believe it or not. How do you judge a show's casting? No doubt, they'll find a way: This year's nominees are Big Love, Dexter, Friday Night Lights, The Good Wife, Mad Men and True Blood.

-- Anyone who nominated Dancing with the Stars for best choreography -- it's up for two awards in the same category! -- clearly didn't see Buzz Aldrin dance, um, rings around Pam "Is this a joke?" Anderson.

-- Sir David Attenborough's epic BBC series Life is up for "outstanding cinematography for nonfiction programming," which is a little like saying Sidney Crosby can play hockey.

Also up for the cinematography award, by the way: Whale Wars. Sadly, the number of cameras shattered during filming doesn't count toward the final vote.

-- Glee, Mad Men and The Tudors are up for best costumes. No surprises there. But The Good Wife? 30 Rock? Must be Kenneth the Page.

-- Glee is up, not once, but twice, for "outstanding hairstyling for a single-camera series," which means Sue Sylvester's 'do must really be catching on. It also means all Sylvester's jokes about Will Schuester's coif must have hit a nerve with Emmy voters.

Also nominated: Mad Men, The Tudors, Tracey Ullman's State of the Union and -- wait for it -- Castle! Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic must be so happy.

-- The field of "single-camera" hairstyling nominees has nothing on the list of "multi-camera" nominees, though. Just try picking a winner from this, um, eclectic bunch: The 82nd Annual Academy Awards, Dancing with the Stars, How I Met Your Mother, Saturday Night Live (the Betty White show) and Two and a Half Men.

Charlie Sheen, ladies and gentlemen! Or his hair, at any rate.

-- Postmedia News

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 21, 2010 C11