In Memory of Empty Seats: John Oliver
There’s no shortage of Monday morning quarterbacks after an awards show. But for all that went right and not-so-right during Sunday’s 2024 Emmys telecast, there’s one mistake even the producers agree on: John Oliver was played off at the exact wrong moment.
Around an hour and fifteen minutes into the show, Oliver accepted the award for outstanding scripted variety show on behalf of his Last Week Tonight staff. He flubbed his own son’s name. He thanked HBO for not canceling him. And, as he began to share a few words about his late dog, the wrap-up music started to play. “We had no idea that the dog that he was talking about had passed away,” says executive producer Dionne Harmon. “If you look back, you’ll notice that we turned the music down the moment he said the dog had passed. We didn’t know!”
The speech — and the play-off, which earned a “Fuck you” from Oliver — ended up being funny and deeply heartwarming, with the comic dedicating the award to all dogs. “You’re all very good girls,” said Oliver. “You’re all very good boys. You all deserve a treat.”
“We’ve had some funny moments with John in the past about playing him off,” adds Harmon. “We didn’t know where he was going with it, but it seemed like he was a good sport. We never want to have to play people off.”
Speaking on the phone with her fellow Emmy executive producers Jesse Collins and Jeannae Rouzan-Clay, Harmon reflected on some of the other more talked about moments of the night — including the in memoriam, the empty seats and the real reason why best comedy wrapped the show and not best drama. It turns out the producers were not in on the surprise that Hacks had won out over odds-on favorite The Bear. They just really wanted their Schitt’s Creek reunion between co-hosts Eugene and Dan Levy with Catherine O’Hara and Annie Murphy.
“We did not know who won, really, it was simply a matter of logistics,” Collins says of the choice to switch comedy and drama. “The West Wing reunion started the act because we wanted to close with a Schitt’s Creek moment. It was more about the presenters than the award.”
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As for the talk of empty seats, Collins and company chalk it up to a surplus of winners from select shows (particularly Shogun) and rush of moving parts. “I don’t know the number of seat fillers we had, and I’m not sure where people are talking about it looking sparse, but it’s difficult to slide in seat fillers during the middle of an act when you’re handing out as many as three awards,” Collins explains. “Sometimes it can create just a traffic jam, so we try to only do seat fillers during the commercial breaks.”
Addressing the obligatory questions about omissions from the in memoriam segment — Shelley Duvall being one highly publicized name missing from the roster and actress Erica Ash being another noticeable slight — the producers lament the tight window but say it’s ultimately out of their hands. “It’s something that the Television Academy deals with,” says Collins. “They give us the list of who should be included in the broadcast portion.”
Collins, Harmon and Rouzan-Clay don’t get much of a break now that the Emmys are done. They’ve got the BET Hip-Hop Awards in less than a month and are already prepping the 2025 Super Bowl Halftime Show with Kendrick Lamar.