Comedy Central’s “Inside Amy Schumer” prevailed in the first-ever Emmy race for Best Variety Sketch Series. Our exclusive Gold Derby odds had the series heavily favored to win with leading odds of 1/5. It had seven nominations in all, including Best Comedy Actress (Amy Schumer). It claimed one other prize at last week’s Creative Arts Awards: Best Music and Lyrics for “Girl You Don’t Need Make Up.”
Emmy Awards: Complete list of winners
Best Variety Sketch Series and Best Variety Talk Series were created by the TV academy this year from the previous combined category Best Variety Series. In years past, talk shows dominated that contest, with the last 17 victories going to just three programs: “The Late Show with David Letterman” (1998-2002), “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” (2003-2012) and “The Colbert Report” (2013-2014).
“Inside Amy Schumer” faced off against the only sketch comedy to have been nominated in the combined category in recent years: NBC’s stalwart “Saturday Night Live,” which celebrated its 40th anniversary this year. It had eight nominations (and seven more bids for its 40th anniversary special) and ranked second in our predictions with 9/1 odds. Though it lost this award, it won twice at Creative Arts — Best Hairstyling (Multi-Camera) and Best Technical Direction (Series) — while the 40th anniversary special won four including Best Variety Special.
Next up with 20/1 odds was another Comedy Central series, “Key and Peele,” which had a breakthrough year with six nominations, including a surprise Comedy Supporting Actor bid for Keegan-Michael Key.
Emmy live blog: Winners, OMG jawdroppers, snubs & snark
IFC’s “Portlandia” ranked fourth with 50/1 odds. It won its only other nomination, Best Production Design (Variety/Nonfiction/Reality), at Creative Arts. Rounding out the category was Comedy Central’s “Drunk History.” This was its only nomination, and it had 100/1 odds to prevail.
Photo: Amy Schumer, Method Man. Credit: Comedy Central/Everett Collection/REX
