“The Bear” stars Jeremy Allen White and Ebon Moss-Bachrach are runaway favorites to win their second straight Best Comedy Actor and Best Comedy Supporting Actor Emmys, respectively, next month. In isolation, that’s not really that notable after “The Bear’s” dominance the past year, but if they pull off the double again, they’d continue a recent trend: It’d be the fifth consecutive year and sixth time in the last seven years that the male comedy acting categories go to the same show.
In 2018, “Barry” swept the categories for Bill Hader and Henry Winkler, 14 years after “Frasier” was the last to achieve it with Kelsey Grammer and David Hyde Pierce. (Coincidentally, this is the same gap on the female side: “Sex and the City” won for Sarah Jessica Parker and Cynthia Nixon in 2004 before “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” produced wins for Rachel Brosnahan and Alex Borstein in 2018.) The following year, Hader defended his crown, but Winkler lost the supporting trophy to “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’s” Tony Shalhoub.
“Schitt’s Creek” then became the first comedy to go seven for seven in the main categories in 2020, making father-son duo (and upcoming Emmy hosts) Eugene and Dan Levy acting champs. The next two years saw “Ted Lasso” rule with victories for Jason Sudeikis and Brett Goldstein. Both failed in their attempts to three-peat last year as White and Moss-Bachrach prevailed.
SEE Jeremy Allen White’s Emmy episode submission for ‘The Bear’ revealed
What these instances have in common is that the sweeping show also won Best Comedy Series in all but one year. “Barry” is the outlier, losing the top prize to “Maisel,” which, as aforementioned, swept the female categories itself. And in three of the other four years, the winning show nabbed at least one more regular acting award. “Schitt’s Creek” obviously had two more, for Catherine O’Hara and Annie Murphy. “Ted Lasso” took Best Comedy Supporting Actress in 2021 for Hannah Waddingham, while “The Bear” triumphed in the same category last year for Ayo Edebiri, who’s now competing in lead.
If it wasn’t already clear before, it should be now: It pays to be in the series frontrunner. Even though the Emmys have branch-specific voting for the winners, with the entire membership voting in program categories, we live in an age where there are too many shows and not enough time to watch them all. In recent years, the top dogs have been dominating acting nominations, so much so that the TV academy reintroduced the restricted ballot last year, which actually proved to be more effective this year as some predicted nominees from series faves “The Bear” (Abby Elliott, Oliver Platt) and “Shōgun” (Cosmo Jarvis, Moeka Hoshi) were snubbed. But the restricted ballot has no bearing on winner voting, where voters just make one choice, and you’ll have an edge with the stronger, buzzier show with greater visibility and momentum.
“The Bear” remains the odds-on favorite to repeat in Best Comedy Series after cleaning up at the winter awards. However, the mixed reception to its third season this summer, which is eligible at the Emmys next year, is probably not going to give it the Emmy boost Season 2 did for Season 1 last year. Does that open the door for “Hacks,” which sits in second and is coming off its best season yet? Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder are the Best Comedy Actress and Best Comedy Supporting Actress frontrunners, respectively, so “Hacks” could keep the winning acting pair trend going and be the “Maisel” to “The Bear’s” “Barry.”
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