Yahoo News From ‘Only Murders in the Building’ to ‘Ted Lasso,’ Emmy Voters Love Their Chosen Families
To understand just how long the TV Academy has struggled to define “comedy series,” look no further than the first decade or so of the category’s life: Between 1952, when Red Skelton’s titular variety show claimed Emmy’s first-ever comedy prize, and 1964, when The Dick Van Dyke Show scored its second win, the category had no fewer than six name changes, ranging from the terse “best comedy show” to the rather unwieldy “outstanding program achievement in the field of comedy.”
And it only grew more complicated from there. Unlike in the drama series category, whose contenders have been consistently hourlong and usually serialized, comedy competitors also started to assume widely different formats: multicam sitcom (All in the Family, Friends); single-camera, half-hour dramedy (The Wonder Years, Sex and the City); single-camera mockumentary (The Office, Modern Family); and hourlong ensemble dramedy (Orange Is the New Black, Shameless), to name a few.
More from The Hollywood Reporter
Script to Scene: 'The Great' Costume Designer Breaks Down an Emmy-Nominated Look
'The Crown,' 'Perry Mason' Costume Designers on the Suits That Make the Men
Yet despite these disparities in format and tone, and in some cases a near total lack of laughs, a surprising theme has emerged over the years — one that makes this year’s batch of contenders not as random as they seem. Over 70 years, the Emmys have more frequently than not lauded series that center not on traditional-family constructs, but those that we would today describe as “chosen families.” Whether through the lens of workplace colleagues, quirky friends or roommates, series with these inclinations have often taken home gold. And while the 2023 race has a few expected outliers (HBO’s Barry, Freevee’s Jury Duty and Netflix’s Wednesday), the majority of this year’s competing series — ABC’s Abbott Elementary, FX/Hulu’s The Bear, Prime Video’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building and Apple TV+’s Ted Lasso — reinforce the power of friends, neighbors and colleagues as the ultimate fodder for relatable laughs.
What’s most surprising about this trend is how early it emerged. In the 1950s and 1960s, when the nuclear family was America’s most treasured postwar commodity, only three shows depicting this classic version of “family” — I Love Lucy (two wins), Make Room for Daddy (one win) and The Dick Van Dyke Show (four wins) — took home Emmy’s top comedy prize, as compared to 10 wins for non-family-centered programs such as Get Smart, The Monkees and myriad variety series. (Dick Van Dyke was arguably a hybrid, as we spent as much time with Rob Petrie at his comedy-writer job as we did at home with the wife and kid.)
In the 1970s, Norman Lear’s game-changing All in the Family took home four prizes, but its haul was matched by collective wins for My World and Welcome to It, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, M*A*S*H and Taxi (the latter winning into the early 1980s). These most certainly laid the groundwork for today’s misfits-in-the-workplace contenders Abbott Elementary, The Bear and Ted Lasso, whose protagonists find comfort for the challenges of personal loss and struggle with their exasperating, if lovable, workday cohorts.
As the 1980s saw an onslaught of popular family-centered TV programming, only The Cosby Show and The Wonder Years ever landed Emmy’s top comedy prize (one time each). Eventual four-time winner Cheers and two-time winner The Golden Girls — the latter a fresh entrant in the “quirky roommate” genre — collectively bested nuclear family shows, though the latter’s iconic mother-daughter duo, Sophia Petrillo and Dorothy Zbornak, offered a welcome dose of acid-tongued familial dysfunction.
Cheers spinoff Frasier, which channeled Dick Van Dyke with its equal parts family and work concept, blew away its peers with five straight wins between 1994 and 1998. But the era more memorably spawned a slew of fresh twists in the chosen-family canon with Murphy Brown (two wins), Seinfeld (one win) and Fox’s idiosyncratic Ally McBeal (dancing babies! dream sequences!), which, in 1999, became the first hourlong series to win best comedy series. That series’ win established that a serialized, longform comedy centered on a group of connected oddballs had a home in the race, thus creating a precedent for 2023 contenders Only Murders in the Building and Wednesday.
McBeal‘s win would also usher in a domination of chosen-family-format wins in the 2000s for zeitgeist touchstones such as Will & Grace, Sex and the City, Friends (which oddly won only one time, for its eighth season, in 2002), The Office and 30 Rock — beating out two wildly divergent born-into-this-family shows in Everybody Loves Raymond, which scored two wins, and Fox’s cult hit Arrested Development, whose sole win in 2004 likely kept the struggling series alive for two more seasons on broadcast TV until its 2013 Netflix reboot.
In 2010, the category experienced a break in pattern with ABC’s Modern Family, which enjoyed a five-peat winning streak. (The juggernaut likely benefited from its intergenerational characters and painfully relatable storylines — and that Will & Grace established that queer characters can and should thrive in broadcast television.) Emmy favorite HBO subsequently saw three wins for its heady, politics-skewering Veep, and Prime Video’s Fleabag and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel each claimed a victory for their uniquely female-forward portrayals of professional, personal and family angst. For Maisel‘s part, nominated again this year for its final season, its unprecedented depiction of professional female camaraderie is among the series’ most meaningful legacies.
A new decade kicked off in 2020 amid a global pandemic, so it’s fitting that the trophy that year (handed out in a COVID-safe, virtual ceremony) went to a wealthy family of entitled adults forced to live together after losing their fortune: Pop TV’s Schitt’s Creek. But by year two of the pandemic, voters were ready for the unabashed optimism of Apple TV+’s American-fish-out-of-water soccer comedy Ted Lasso, which scored two consecutive wins, reminding a jaded industry that feel-good doesn’t have to be a bad thing.
So what does the Emmys’ undeniable preference for chosen families signal for this year’s contenders? While pundits are mixed on who’s leading the pack (Lasso‘s tepidly reviewed third season and fan favorite The Bear‘s grief-heavy tone are two reasons the race could be ripe for a spoiler), voters have already signaled their unwaning love for comedies that redefine what it means to belong. And in a post-pandemic culture increasingly beset by isolation, grief and loss, there’s a certain comfort in knowing that family — whether onscreen or in real life — can be found all around us.
This story first appeared in an August stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
Best of The Hollywood Reporter
