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The Daily Star, Oneonta, N.Y., Friday, September 15, 2017 4 By Kyla Brewer TV Media A s the weather begins to cool and TV fans pre- pare to tuck into a whole new season of prime time, the stars of the small screen take a look back at the year's achievements and cele- brate the outstanding work of their peers. Stephen Colbert ("The Late Show With Stephen Colbert") welcomes some of the televi- sion industry's biggest names to the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles as he hosts the 69th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards, airing Sunday, Sept. 17, on CBS. Bestowed annual- ly by the Television Academy of Arts and Sciences, the awards recognize excellence in American prime-time pro- gramming in a variety of cate- gories, which include acting, directing, writing and a "best of" category. Colbert is the latest in a string of late-night personali- ties to helm a major awards ceremony this year. Jimmy Fallon ("The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon") host- ed The 74th Golden Globe Awards, Jimmy Kimmel ("Jim- my Kimmel Live!") emceed The 89th Academy Awards and James Corden ("The Late Late Show With James Cord- en") took the reins of the 59th Annual Grammy Awards. Now it's Colbert's turn, and the folks at CBS couldn't be happier. The network's head honchos sang Colbert's prais- es in January when news broke that he'd be the latest Emmy host. "Stephen is the ultimate master of ceremonies with award-winning creative tal- ents, and as we've seen in the past few months, he has a fearless passion for live televi- sion," CBS executive Jack Sussman said. When his Emmy gig was an- nounced, Colbert responded in his trademark tongue-in-cheek fashion, saying: "This will be the largest audience to witness an Emmys, period." The quip was a not-so-subtle jab at the controversy surrounding atten- dance at President Trump's in- auguration in January. This year's ceremony could be very big for Colbert indeed. He's up for six of the coveted statuettes and is poised to make Emmy history should he win multiple awards while also hosting the show. "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert" has earned Emmy nominations for directing, writing and out- standing variety talk series. The comedian's Showtime election night special, "Stephen Col- bert's Live Election Night De- mocracy's Series Finale: Who's Going to Clean Up This Sh*t," has been nominated in the same three categories. Such a win would be stellar for Colbert, but there will be plenty of other excitement during this year's ceremony. Shemar Moore ("Criminal Minds") and Anna Chlumsky ("Veep") announced the nominees in July, revealing that NBC's "Saturday Night Live" and HBO's "Westworld" had each earned a whopping 22 nominations. Other big nominees include FX's "Feud: Bette and Joan" and Netflix's "Stranger Things," which tied with 18 Emmy nods, while HBO's "Veep" came in next with 17 just ahead of HBO's "Little Big Lies" and FX's "Far- go," which each earned 16. With nods for everything from supporting actor to makeup to writing, "SNL" led the way for NBC, which came through with 64 overall nomi- nations. That's a mere drop in the bucket, however, com- pared to HBO's 111 nomina- tions, and that's without rat- ings juggernaut "Game of Thrones," which was ineligi- ble for this year's Emmys. Streaming service Netflix brought home a total of 91 nominations, pushing NBC to third place just ahead of FX, which earned 55 Emmy nomi- nations for its programs. ABC followed with 33, CBS was close behind with 29 and Fox came through with 20. It is worth noting that NBC's hit "This Is Us" became the first Outstanding Drama Series nominee from a broad- cast network since 2011. It's up against HBO's "West- world," AMC's "Better Call Saul," Hulu's "The Hand- maid's Tale" and Netflix's "The Crown," "Stranger Things" and "House of Cards." The Outstanding Comedy Series category includes a mix of traditional broadcast sit- coms, quirky streaming series and star-studded cable shows. ABC's "Black-ish" and "Mod- ern Family" are both nominat- ed for the Emmy, while HBO's "Silicon Valley" and "Veep," Netflix's "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" and "Master of None" and FX's "Atlanta" round out the category. Defending champion Jef- frey Tambor is once again nominated in the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for his role in Amazon's "Transparent." The other nominees include Anthony Anderson ("Black-ish"), Wil- liam H. Macy ("Shameless"), Aziz Ansari ("Master of None"), Zach Galifianakis ("Baskets") and Donald Glov- er ("Atlanta"). Milo Ventimiglia and Ster- ling K. Brown from "This Is Us" are both up for Outstand- ing Lead Actor in a Drama Se- ries, a category which also in- cludes Matthew Rhys ("The Americans"), Bob Odenkirk ("Better Call Saul"), Kevin Spacey ("House of Cards"), Liev Schreiber ("Ray Dono- van") and Anthony Hopkins ("Westworld"). Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin both made the cut for Out- standing Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for their work in the Netflix series "Grace and Frankie." Other nominees include Julia Louis-Dreyfus ("Veep"), Ellie Kemper ("Un- breakable Kimmy Schmidt"), Allison Janney ("Mom"), Tra- cee Ellis Ross ("Black-ish") and Pamela Adlon ("Better Things"). coverstory Stephen Colbert is set to host the 69th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards A bounty of stars: Emmy Awards kick off fall TV season By Adam Thomlison TV Media Q: Who plays Brianna in "Grace and Frankie"? I love that show, and I love her in it. A: Grace's daughter Brianna in "Grace and Frankie" is played by longtime sketch comedy star June Diane Raphael. Being a female comic making a successful transition from sketch to sitcom puts her on a path blazed partly by her "Grace and Frankie" co-star, the great Lily Tomlin. Tomlin became fa- mous as a cast member in the sketch comedy classic "Laugh- In" in the late '60s and early '70s. Raphael's background is a little less landmark filled, but no less successful. She first came to prominence in the mid-2000s for her stage shows at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in her native New York. However, she soon found increasingly large roles in TV and film. She had her first regular TV gig in the short-lived 2010 sit- com "Players" on Spike TV, but real success came the next year with the Cartoon Network cop-show parody "NTSF:SD:SUV," appearing alongside her husband, Paul Scheer. She's had success behind the scenes as well. She's a writer who, along with her longtime comedy partner, Casey Wilson, penned the screenplay for the hit 2009 big-screen comedy "Bride Wars" (which starred Kate Hudson and Anne Hatha- way). The pair also wrote and starred in the 2013 indie film "Ass Backwards." Q: What song does Garth whistle when he and Wayne are lying on the car by the airport in "Wayne's World"? It's familiar but I can't figure it out. A: The familiar tune Garth is whistling is the original "Star Trek" theme. He offers a fairly broad hint right afterward when he says, "Sometimes I wish I could boldly go where no man's gone before. But I'll probably stay in Aurora." Aurora is, of course, the suburban-Illinois setting of the smash-hit 1992 film. This seemingly random inclusion makes more sense in the context of the film. The scene begins with a shot of the starry night sky and the whistling, which is note-perfect and has stu- dio-sounding effects on it, so that for a second we aren't sure if they're watching "Star Trek" on television or if the film has suddenly turned into sci-fi or something. Only after a full bar of the song has gone by does the shot switch to the boys on the hood of Garth's car, and we realize it's a very terrestrial scene after all. "Wayne's World" was, of course, a very music-heavy film. The main characters are forever going to concerts or listening to music (as in the famous headbanging scene to Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody," which occurs in the same car), or else performing it themselves, either by whistling or by playing gui- tar. Indeed, film scholars Arthur Knight and Pamela Robertson Wojcik, in their book "Soundtrack Available: Essays on Film and Popular Music," go so far as to say that "Wayne's World" "could be seen as a reinvention of the musical." The film's soundtrack was a massive hit, though Garth's ren- dition of the "Star Trek" theme didn't make the cut. It was cer- tified double-platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, selling more than two million units, and hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. Have a question? Email us at questions@tvtabloid.com. Please include your name and town. hollywoodQ&A

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