Dr. John Leverence on the Emmys "cutoff rule" that almost made the final season of The Sopranos ineligible for nomination until the year after it aired, and how then-HBO chairman Chris Albrecht appealed to the Television Academy Awards department and the accommodation was made to allow the show to be eligible for an Emmy in its final year
Dr. John Leverence on Emmy category classifications and changes, such as with the program Shameless which had elements of both comedy and drama categories, and how the show's producers appealed to change the classification to a comedy
John Leverence on the classification of a program for the Emmys based on its running time - if a program is 30 minutes it is considered a comedy and if it is 60 minutes it is considered a drama, and on the process by which programs that wish to change categories submit a number of the show's episodes to an "Industry Panel" (an anonymous group of high-level programming executives)
Dr. John Leverence on the ambiguity surrounding how programs are categorized, and on the issues surrounding the classification of the documentary Surviving R. Kelly as a documentary rather than as an informational series, resulting in a review by the peer group of the guidelines defining the category
Dr. John Leverence on the issue with guest actors and the eligibility rules around their eligibility for Emmy nominations
Dr. John Leverence on the issues surrounding the category of supporting player in longform and the issues surrounding the so-called "Ellen Burstyn Rule" (Ed. note: Dr. Leverence would like to note he misspoke here and meant Ellen Burstyn, not Ellen Barkin)
Dr. John Leverence on which Television Academy rules he personally lobbied to change after so many years administering the Emmys
Dr. John Leverence on the Television Academy Rule of 14 where if in two consecutive years a category has fewer than 14 Emmy nominations, the Television Academy Board votes on whether to discontinue the category or merge it with another
Dr. John Leverence on the 2009 decision to expand the main Primetime Emmy award categories beyond five nominees
Dr. John Leverence on the issues arising from the same individual winning an Emmy in the same category every year
Dr. John Leverence on how and when the names of the winners get affixed to the actual Emmy statuette - since no one knows the names of the winners in advance, all the nominees' names are actually engraved on plates in advance then the non-winning plates are disposed of and the winners' names are affixed to the statuette
Dr. John Leverence on the origin of and design of the Emmy statuette, designed by Louis McManus; on the actual weight (about six pounds) and heft of the statuette, made out of compound metal by R.S. Owens
Dr. John Leverence on the ballot and voting process and how the accounting firm Ernst & Young is able to keep the names of the winners secret - the names of the Emmy winners are first disclosed when the envelopes are opened live on the telecast
Dr. John Leverence on bearing witness through his long tenure as the Administrator of the Emmy Awards to the sheer stupor experienced by those who win an Emmy award and some of his memories of various people getting injured by the physical award statuette, and on sound editor Russ Tinsley, whose son Rusty had a prosthetic leg, winning the award and waiting for his son to put the leg back on before he would go onstage to receive the award
Dr. John Leverence on actor Jon Hamm being overwhelmed by finally winning an Emmy award after numerous nominations
Dr. John Leverence on Viola Davis winning an Emmy for Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series in 2015 (for How to Get Away with Murder) as the first Black actress to win in that category
Dr. John Leverence on how the Television Academy has addressed inclusivity and avoid the kind of criticism that the #OscarsSoWhite reaction to the Motion Picture Academy's Oscar awards has experienced in recent years
Dr. John Leverence on the single-most valuable asset of the Awards department as well as his role as the Administrator of the awards: to maintain the integrity of the Emmy, and on how the administration of the award does deal with certain housekeeping measures, but the real challenge is to deal with substantive issues which, if not properly handled, may result in a diminishment of the integrity of the award
Dr. John Leverence on the importance of the Television Academy Foundation Interviews program and its extraordinary value which he believes scholars will reference for one-hundred years
James L. Brooks on Room 222 beating Sesame Street as best new show
Show co-creator/writer James L. Brooks on Grant Tinker supporting taping of an episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show that the network was against, and winning an Emmy for it
James L. Brooks on the two part episode of Taxi: "Scenskees From a Marriage" - Latka's affair, for which Carol Kane won an Emmy
James L. Brooks on winning Emmys for multiple genres
Tony Charmoli on receiving an Emmy Award and a Dance Magazine Award for his choreography on Your Hit Parade
Tony Charmoli on winning an Emmy for choreographing and directing for a Mitzi Gaynor special
Tony Charmoli on winning and Emmy for directing and choreographing the special Gypsy In My Soul for Shirley MacLaine
Tony Charmoli on highlights of his career, including his Emmy wins
David Crane and Marta Kauffman on getting a mistaken Emmy nomination for Friends, due to a teleprompter error
David Crane and Marta Kauffman on being nominated for an Emmy for Dream On
David Crane and Marta Kauffman on getting a mistaken Emmy nomination for Friends, due to a teleprompter error
David Crane and Marta Kauffman on being nominated for an Emmy for Dream On
George Spiro Dibie on the technique for which he won his first Emmy
George Spiro Dibie on winning his first Emmy
George Spiro Dibie on winning 2 Emmys for Growing Pains - largely for lighting night scenes
George Spiro Dibie on winning his 5th Emmy for Sister, Sister
Bob Finkel on directing the first televised Emmy Awards broadcast
Bob Finkel on The Andy Williams Show winning Emmy Awards
Bob Finkel on producing and directing Emmy broadcasts, and winning an Emmy while producing the Emmys
Bob Finkel on what he learned from producing and directing Emmy broadcasts, and applying it to other Awards broadcasts
Buz Kohan on his daughter, Jenji Kohan, writing for Tracey Takes On... and winning an Emmy, and his son David Kohan winning an Emmy, making his family one of only two families with three members that have won Emmy awards (Danny, Marlo, and Tony Thomas are the other family/members)
Buz Kohan on writing for the Smith-Hemion production America Salutes Richard Rodgers: The Sound of His Music and winning an Emmy for the show
Bob Markell on breaking a design rule that won him an Emmy award in 1954 for art direction of a live show
Bob Markell on the Emmy winning episode of The Defenders, "The Madman"
Bob Markell on The Defenders winning further Emmy Awards
Bob Markell on the Emmy winning Bicentennial Minutes
Doris Roberts on being nominated for an Emmy Award for her role on St. Elsewhere and what her husband, William Goyen, who was very ill said about her then-recent appearance on The Love Boat
Doris Roberts on both she and James Coco winning Emmys for St. Elsewhere
Doris Roberts on her Emmy Award wins, as well as other award wins
Stanley Rubin on winning the first Emmy Award ever to awarded a "film made for television" for Your Show Time at the first Emmy Awards ceremony on January 25, 1949
Stanley Rubin on the Emmy nominations for his TV movie, Babe
Stanley Rubin on his Emmy statue for Your Show Time
Stanley Rubin on a picture with his Emmy statue for Your Show Time
Treva Silverman on The Monkeeswinning Emmy Awards, and on the end of the show
Treva Silverman on being the first female writer to win an Emmy Award
Treva Silverman on winning the "Super" Emmy Award for writing "The Lou and Edie Story" for The Mary Tyler Moore Show
Treva Silverman on submitting Mary Tyler Moore Show scripts for Emmy consideration
Tucker Wiard on winning an Emmy Award for editing on The Carol Burnett Show
Tucker Wiard on winning an Emmy Award for the final episode of The Carol Burnett Show
Tucker Wiard on winning an Emmy Award for Murphy Brown
Tucker Wiard on Tucker Wiard on favorite episodes of Murphy Brown including the Emmy winning, "On a Plane"
On winning an Emmy for the mini-series The Scarlett Letter
