Emmys Awards 2019 Opening: Homer Simpson, Anthony Anderson, Bryan Cranston Lead Telecast
Without an announced host this year, it was unclear how the 2019 Emmys would go about, and the ceremony seemed to want to lampshade that chaos with its opening skit. The telecast on Fox began with Homer Simpson in a tux coming to the stage as the show’s host via a giant screen.
“This was my impossible dream,” Simpson said. “If it could happen to me, then you…” And that was all Homer got to say, before a giant cartoon piano fell on his head.
The camera then cut to Blackish star Anthony Anderson, sitting in the audience and stunned at what had just happened, before deciding to take matters into his own hands. Anderson rushed backstage and, through a series of mishaps and utter panic in trying to get the ceremony going, he stumbled across the shelves of Emmy statuettes and decided to…purloin several for himself, handing several to his mother to stuff in her purse. No word yet on whether the statuettes have been retrieved.
A stagehand, not knowing what to do, pushed actor Bryan Cranston onto the stage, where he miraculously had an opening monologue about the wonders of television at the ready. Cranston, with the help of the projections behind him, name-dropped some of 2019’s most notable series, including Game of Thrones, Bachelor in Paradise, Stranger Things and This Is Us.
“Television has never been bigger,” Cranston concluded. “Television has never mattered more. And television has never been this damn good.” With that, the ceremony showed a pre-cut montage of the nominated series, and the 2019 Emmy Awards began.
Watch Bryan Cranston (@BryanCranston) open up the first-ever host-less Emmy Awards https://t.co/2xLTkovrX2 #Emmys2019 pic.twitter.com/lPqDe1mFSZ
— Hollywood Reporter (@THR) September 23, 2019