Upon taking the stage where he and fellow South Park creator Trey Parker were being inducted into the 28th Television Academy Hall of Fame, Matt Stone reflected on some fortuitous timing, with no trace of the irreverence for which the animated series is known.
“By some crazy cosmic coincidence, 29 years ago, this date today, August 13th, 1997, South Park went on the air on Comedy Central,” he said. “Paramount — Viacom — whatever they are now, has been an amazing partner throughout the years, and the executives, past and present, we want to thank them.”
The other five industry titans being inducted August 13, 2026, at the JW Marriott at L.A. LIVE may not have had quite as long a run with any one show, but all have enjoyed decades of success in television, whether on camera or behind the scenes. Those honorees were actors Ted Danson and Jean Smart, documentary producer and executive Sheila Nevins, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos and posthumously, longtime CBS News journalist and 60 Minutes correspondent Ed Bradley.
“I know sometimes it can be hard to understand the depth of your impact in your own lifetime without the benefit of history’s long view,” Television Academy chair Cris Abrego said in his welcome. “But to the honorees tonight, I can tell you on behalf of the Television Academy that you’ve already shaped our medium — and through it, our culture — in deep and lasting ways.
“[We’re here] tonight to celebrate a group of individuals whose work represents the very best of television: unforgettable performances, fearless journalism, comedy that reshaped the cultural conversation, documentaries that aided our understanding of the world and visionary leadership that has transformed television and the world itself.”
South Park, a five-time Emmy-winning satire showcasing four impudent fourth-grade boys in a Colorado mountain town of the same name, may have seemed an unlikely cultural touchstone upon that long-ago premiere, but its creators’ irreverent, mocking take on provocative political, social and religious topics struck an immediate chord with viewers.
“This is a huge honor,” Stone went on to say in acceptance, “and I want to give a few shoutouts first to my family and my wife and kids, because I've missed a few birthdays . . . . Also, we’ve had the occasional fatwa and security situations.”
For his part, said Parker, “After 30 years of doing a TV show, it’s pretty challenging to write a speech that acknowledges everyone who deserves our thanks. I wanted this to be a speech that showed how grateful we are and expressed everything that tonight means to us. But no matter how hard I tried, ChatGPT just couldn’t seem to get it right.”
After thanking the Television Academy “for this overwhelming honor” and the many people who work on the show, Parker added, “And now, to all the South Park fans, you guys are truly the reason the show is what it is, and you keep us all going. It’s incredible to know that there are millions of people around the globe who think a lot like we do, people who aren’t on one extreme or the other, people who question things, change their minds and who can see how ridiculous both sides can get. People who believe that no matter what, we can’t stop laughing — at ourselves, at each other — because when any one group starts taking itself too seriously, really, really bad shit happens, as we’re seeing right now.”
Provocative in an entirely different — but societal-changing — way is the roster of work Sheila Nevins has been responsible for since 1979, when she became director of documentary programming for start-up cable network Home Box Office. She left 2018 as president of HBO documentary films, having overseen more than 1,000 productions. As executive producer of such projects as When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, Grandpa, Do You Know Who I Am? with Maria Shriver, Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief and Manhunt: The Inside Story of the Hunt for Bin Laden, Nevins has won 31 Emmy Awards — more than any other person — and was honored with the Academy’s Governors Award in 2009. She also received a George Foster Peabody Award. Following her tenure at HBO, she headed the MTV documentary films division for five years.
Nevins, who was recovering from Covid and pneumonia and could not attend the ceremony, accepted on video. She used almost all her speech to thank her fellow inductees. Of Ted Danson’s current Netflix series — A Man on the Inside, based on the 2020 documentary The Mole Agent about a widower who moves into a retirement home to secretly investigate conditions there — she said, “How important that is, to base narrative on true stories and make people understand that truth infuses fiction. So, thank you for that. That really was quite important.”
No stranger to Emmy Awards herself — she has seven, including four consecutive wins for her role as standup comic Deborah Vance on HBO’s Hacks, and is nominated again this year — Jean Smart first became known as design-firm office manager Charlene Frazier on the hit 1980s sitcom Designing Women. She is equally adept at dramatic roles, having been nominated for such shows as Mare of Easttown, Watchmen, Fargo and 24.
In accepting, Smart reflected, “Fame is a strange thing to get used to. When my oldest [son] was little, I would politely decline signing autographs if he was with me, explaining, ‘No, I’m sorry, if you don’t mind, but today I’m just Mom.’ I wanted to protect that as much as humanly possible. But one day he turned to me and said, ‘It’s okay, Mommy. You should sign. It just means they like you.’ So, his very sweet and practical assessment of the situation helped me become a little more comfortable with the notion.”
As for the significance of her Hall of Fame induction, “I just want to express how unbelievably grateful I am to be up here,” she said. “This is an amazing and truly unexpected honor, and to be included among my fellow inductees tonight is the gift of a lifetime. Thank you all so much.”
Fellow actor Ted Danson scored his first big hit as bartender Sam Malone on Cheers, an 11-year run beginning in 1982, for which he won two Emmy Awards. He moved on to other comedies such as Becker, The Good Place, Curb Your Enthusiasm and the aforementioned A Man on the Inside. But like Smart, he’s adept at dramatic roles as well — the two worked together on Fargo, and his other drama credits include Damages, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and the groundbreaking telefilm about child sexual abuse, Something About Amelia. Last year, he and wife Mary Steenburgen were honored by the Television Academy with the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award for their philanthropy and social and environmental activism.
Danson recalled his early TV-watching, which occurred when he visited his cousins in Pasadena, as his own family, who lived near Flagstaff, Arizona, did not own a set. “I was in heaven,” he said. “I would wake up early in the morning so I could read the TV Guide magazine cover to cover — and I mean, I would study it for hours. I’d pick up a pencil, and I’d write in the margins what I would want to watch that day.”
Continuing, he said, “I can’t help but think, what would young Ted Danson have thought if he knew someday he would be standing here being inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame by his Academy Award-winning wife, Mary Steenburgen. I have so many people to thank for all of this.” Expressing his gratitude to those with whom he shared personal or professional relationships, Danson noted, “This is an amazing honor, and to be in the room with so many incredibly talented people, powerful, interesting, life-changing people — I really appreciate this.”
Ted Sarandos also grew up in Arizona, in Phoenix, and fell in love with television and films at an early age. A job in a video-rental store allowed him to immerse himself in viewing and to advise others on what to watch. It was appropriate, then, that when he joined Netflix in 2000, it was a DVD-by-mail rental company. When Netflix began streaming content and Sarandos was moving up the executive ranks, he watched the pilot of the political thriller House of Cards, gave it a multi-season greenlight and released all 13 episodes of the first season at once, thereby changing the way viewers consumed television. The suspenseful political drama became the first streamed show to win Emmy Awards, in 2013; in all, Netflix programming has won more than 260 Emmys, for shows including Adolescence, Baby Reindeer, BEEF, Bridgerton, Love on the Spectrum and Stranger Things.
“Thank you to the Television Academy for this tremendous honor, and the irony is not lost on me,” Sarandos said. “I have never created, written or directed a show, so I’m not going to win an Emmy for that. You saw me on The Studio” — referring to a cameo last year in the Emmy-winning Apple TV comedy. “Clearly, I’m not going to win an Emmy for acting. Yet tonight, I’m being inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame.”
Expressing his admiration for his fellow inductees and extending thanks to numerous others, Sarandos added, “The relationship we have with people on TV is intimate, and we spend more time with them than we spend with a lot of people in our lives. They become part of our families. They help us discover more about ourselves. They’re there with us in the best and the worst of times. And I’m standing here tonight as a fan of my other Hall of Fame classmates and everyone in this room and everyone who came before us, and everyone who’s going to come after us, for everything that you do to make this world a better place. So, thank you again to the Television Academy. This is an honor.”
Almost two decades after his death from chronic lymphocytic leukemia complications in November 2006, at age 65, broadcast journalist Ed Bradley is still inspiring others by the example of integrity, empathy and dedication he set and the people he mentored. After becoming the first Black correspondent for the iconic CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes in 1981, he reported more than 500 stories, working on his last one the day before he died. Earlier, he had worked for CBS News based in Paris and anchored CBS Sunday News for almost five years. In his 39-year tenure with the network, he received 20 Emmys and the George Foster Peabody Award.
Accepting for Bradley was his widow, Patricia Blanchet, who recounted projects in his name that train new generations of journalists and financially support Black arts and urged the audience to help safeguard threatened democracy and the press.
“Thank you so much for this great honor to Ed,” she said. “As one of the few Black journalists with his broad visibility and millions of devoted audiences, Ed understood perfectly his position and power in the media. One of the keys to his success in transforming this world into his own outstanding image was his refusal to be defined solely by his race and limited only to the race beat in the types of stories that he covered. This was and remains a radical act. Honoring Ed, as you do today, acknowledges his most essential values and transforms his remarkable life into a true living legacy.”
Ceremony presenters included Bill Hader for Parker and Stone; Jerry Seinfeld for Sarandos; Lesley Stahl for Bradley; Mary Steenburgen for Danson; Lily Tomlin for Nevins; and Hacks creators-writers-showrunners Paul W. Downs, Lucia Aniello and Jen Statsky for Smart.
Bob Bain was executive producer of the ceremony. Rick Rosen is chair of the Hall of Fame Selection Committee.
