Johnny Carson’s Emmy Era: Host, Nominee, Critic

When the Emmys go live Sept. 14 from the Peacock Theater, Nate Bargatze will take the stage in the dual role of first-time host and first-time nominee, for his Netflix special Your Friend, Nate Bargatze. He will be following in the footsteps of Johnny Carson, who hosted the Emmys from 1971 to 1974 and was nominated three of those years, for The Tonight Show.

Back then, THR‘s reviews of the awards broadcast were unsurprisingly effusive about the king of late night TV, calling him a “wonderful host” who “presided over the show with his usual charm and humor.” After the 1974 ceremony — the last one he’d ever MC — Carson went on the record calling to abolish competitive Emmys as they existed at the time, to be replaced with a more selective system akin to the Peabody Awards. “You don’t say there’s a category for drama, a category for comedy,” Carson told THR. “If Mary Tyler Moore deserves an Emmy, and she does, for her consistent quality, you give it to her. But you don’t make her compete against Carol Burnett. If Carol Burnett also deserves one, you give one to her, also.”

Carson went on to win four competitive Emmys, and in 1980, the Television Academy honored him with its third-ever Governors Award. Much like what he had advocated, the special award is given to those who have “made a profound, transformational and long-lasting contribution” to television.