Animation Nominees Announced For 78th Primetime Emmy Awards

 The Emmy Awards have long been considered the most prestigious in television. Animation is largely relegated to its own categories (although it's eligible for a couple of other technical awards). Even so, an Emmy is an accolade that animated series covet. The nominations have now been announced for the 78th Primetime Emmy Awards.

The Outstanding Animated Program category has been running since 1979. In the earlier years, it nominated children's animation as that was largely what was available at the time. Most of the nominees back then were TV specials too, things like Garfield and Charlie Brown. The Simpsons got its first two nominations (and its first win) back in 1990, and has gone on to dominate the category ever since. In some years, the award was split into "one hour or less" and "over one hour" but they don't do that any more.

The Simpsons has won the award 12 times and been nominated 35 times. South Park has been nominated 19 times and won five. Bob's Burgers has been nominated 15 times and won twice. Rick and Morty is a five-time nominee and a two-time winner.

As such, it's not much of a surprise to see this year's nominations feature The Simpsons, Bob's Burgers, South Park and Rick and Morty. All four series have a strong record of getting nominated and are past winners. They are probably also the best known currently airing adult animation series (all that is missing is Family Guy).

The remaining two slots are where it gets more interesting. Scoring its debut nomination is Smiling Friends, Zach Hadel and Michael Cusack's series for Adult Swim. The nomination is probably pretty bittersweet for fans, considering Hadel and Cusack's announcement in February that the series would be ending with its third season.

The last spot sees the first nomination for Star Wars: Visions, LucasFilm's animated anthology series. The nominated episode is Black, produced by David Productions and directed by Shinya Ohira. Previous volumes have been nominated, only under different categories. The Volume One episode The Duel was nominated for Outstanding Short Form Animated Program in 2022, and Volume Two episode Screecher's Reach was nominated for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation. 

The other major animation category is the Outstanding Character Voice Over Performance, which is eligible to both animation and live-action. Of course, one of the cast of The Simpsons has to be included, and this year it's Hank Azaria, nominated for his many roles. South Park is also represented by Trey Parker. Pamela Adlon makes her return to the category for the revived King Of The Hill. Actually representing a series that isn't 30 years old is Steven Yeun for Invincible. Outside of animation, the legendary Julie Andrews is nominated for Netflix's Bridgerton, and Matt Vogel is nominated for The Muppet Show Special.

The 78th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards take place on September 14, and will be broadcast on NBC and streamed on Peacock.