Mariska Hargitay, who will host this year’s Emmy Awards telecast on Monday, scored her own Emmy gold a few days early when she won two for My Mom Jayne: A Film by Mariska Hargitay, her moving HBO documentary about her late mother, actress Jayne Mansfield.
See photo galleries from Night 1.
Hargitay’s awards came in the categories of Outstanding Directing for a Documentary/Nonfiction Program and Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special. Her wins came 20 years after her first Emmy, for lead actress in a drama, which she received for her work in the long-running NBC series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
The top winner on Saturday — the first of this year’s three Emmys ceremonies at the Peacock Theater at LA LIVE in downtown Los Angeles — was the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show Starring Bad Bunny, which captured seven awards. It was followed closely by the Peacock reality competition series The Traitors, which topped six categories.
Other productions with multiple awards included the CBS late-night series The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, which took five in its final season; the Disney+ special The Muppet Show with four; the Netflix reality series Love on the Spectrum with three; and My Mom Jayne and National Geographic’s Ocean with David Attenborough, which took two each.
The Bad Bunny halftime special aired on NBC during the championship game between the victorious Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots, which drew 125 million viewers. The ambitious live production, which was named Outstanding Live Variety Special, also won Emmys for its music direction, choreography, sound mixing, lighting design/lighting direction, technical direction and camerawork, and for director Hamish Hamilton.
The Traitors’ six Emmys included a third for Alan Cumming as outstanding host for a reality or reality competition program. It also won in the category of directing for a reality program, which went to Ben Archard for the second time, as well as production design, picture editing, cinematography and costumes.
The five for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert came for its writing, picture editing, lighting design/lighting direction, technical direction and camerawork, and for director Yvonne De Mare.
The Muppet Show took home awards for production design, writing, picture editing and pre-recorded variety special. Accepting the latter, executive producer Seth Rogen noted that Saturday was the 50th anniversary of the premiere of the original Muppet Show.
For the third time, Love on the Spectrum won the Emmy for outstanding unstructured reality program; it was also awarded for its casting for the fourth time and its picture editing for the second time.
The nature program Ocean with David Attenborough prevailed for its cinematography and sound editing.
Other awards included:
• Game show — Jeopardy!, ABC/Syndicated
• Host for a game show — Jimmy Kimmel, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, ABC
• Narrator — Octavia Spencer, Lost Women of Alaska, “The Missing,” Investigation Discovery
• Performer in a short form comedy or drama series — Desi Lydic for The Daily Show: Desi Lydic Foxsplains, YouTube
• Short form nonfiction or reality series — Inside The Pitt, HBO Max
• Short form comedy, drama or variety series — Colbert Before Air, YouTube
• Structured reality program — Antiques Roadshow, PBS
• Documentary or nonfiction series — Mr. Scorsese, Apple TV
• Exceptional merit in documentary filmmaking — The Librarians, PBS
• Hosted nonfiction series or special — Tucci in Italy, National Geographic
• Emerging media — Uncanny Alley: A New Day, VRChat
• Innovation in emerging media programming — Crafting Crimes, Meta Quest
• Commercial — "I’m Not Remarkable," Apple
• Writing for a nonfiction special — The Daily Show Presents: Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse: Give the Man a Prize, Comedy Central
Bob Bain was executive producer of the first weekend of Emmy shows for the 12th time. The Television Academy's Creative Arts Emmy Awards Committee is led by cochairs Yvette Cobarrubias and Lee Hollin.
FXX will broadcast edited highlights from the Saturday and Sunday Emmys shows on Saturday, September 12, at 8:00 PM ET/PT. It will be available for streaming on Hulu the following day.
The 78th Emmys telecast will air live Monday, September 14, on NBC and stream on Peacock.
A complete list of Saturday night winners is available here.
