The 78th Primetime Emmy Awards are taking place tonight at the Peacock Theater in Downtown Los Angeles. The Emmys don’t have Best Original Song and Best Original Score categories like the Oscars (though they should totally honor television’s best needle drops), but the ceremony intersected with the music world in a couple of ways.
Host Mariska Hargitay opened the show with the requisite song about current TV shows. It was a parody of “I Love Rock ’n’ Roll” (changed to “I Love TV Screens”) with cameos from Jalen Brunson, Jeff Hiller, Jean Smart, and Jennifer Coolidge.
You may recall Harigitay watched Brunson lead the New York Knicks to a Game 4 win in June while wearing matching t-shirts with Taylor Swift, and Alana and Este Haim. During tonight’s Emmys she reunited with Swift for a pre-taped sketch. Swift’s cat Olivia Benson appeared too — she’s named after the actress’ Law & Order: Special Victims Unit character. The segment, which satirized crazed Swifties searching for easter eggs in the pop star’s music and videos, set up a Pepe Silvia scene about whether Swift would show up to tonight’s ceremony. (Her Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour | The Final Show was nominated in five categories, but did not win any when the Creative Arts Emmys were announced earlier this month.)
Swift was not there. She was at Arrowhead Stadium, asking Tom Cruise if Digger is a musical.
Then, during the In Memoriam segment honoring TV industry people who’ve died in the past year, Noah Kahan dipped into his northeast folk-rock cultural heritage by covering Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” There was also a special tribute to Dolly Parton from Sally Field and Reba McEntire, who sang “Appalachian Memories.”
That was sad. Here’s John Mulaney:
