‘Last Week Tonight’ Variety Series Writing Emmy Continues ‘The Daily Show’ Tradition
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver snagged its first Emmy win tonight for best variety series writing. The category was wide open because the two late-night series that had a lock on this derby for more than a decade, Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report, ended their runs. Saturday Night Live, nominated again this year, last won in 2002.
Oliver isn’t exactly a newbie, having won this trophy three times as part of Stewart’s writing team. Last Week writer Tim Carvell also won multiple Emmys on Stewart’s payroll.
“We wrote a speech, but we’re Last Week Tonight so it’s 20 minutes long and has the f-word in it 52 times,” Oliver joked on stage tonight.
Backstage the writers joked, of the show’s often inscrutable subject choices that “sometimes we’re daring people not to watch with [subject] we’re talking about.”
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