After Black-ish Emmy snub, Anthony Anderson takes comfort in Kangaroo Jack as one does
Anderson addresses himself, co-star Tracee Ellis Ross, and his show not being nominated while guest-hosting Jimmy Kimmel Live!
The final season of Black-ish was one of the many departing shows left off the list when Emmy Award nominations were announced on Tuesday. Of course, the series’ star Anthony Anderson couldn’t help but notice the snub—and he had the platform to discuss it while guest-hosting Jimmy Kimmel Live!
In his monologue, Anderson notes that the nominations had been announced earlier in the day, snarking, “The most nominated show this year is Succession, or, as I like to call it, White-ish.”
After congratulating Kimmel and his staff for their nominations, Anderson says, “Look, I don’t want to bring the mood down, but I do have a bone to pick with the Academy. You know who did not get nominated for a Primetime Emmy this morning? America’s sweetheart, me! That’s right, me—Anthony Anderson—and neither did my show, Black-ish, or my co-star, Tracee Ellis Ross.”
“Look, I’m not saying the voters were stupid for not nominating me or Black-ish or Tracee. I’m saying they’re racist,” he jokes. (In previous years both Anderson and Ellis Ross had been nominated several times each for their performances on the show, though neither ever won.)
Pointing out that many of the other nominated comedies (like Barry and Only Murders In The Building) have a body count, Anderson adds, “So Black-ish wasn’t nominated, but we’ve been named the lead suspect in all of those white-people murder shows.”
There is a silver lining: “You know who else never won an Emmy? Nelson Mandela—I think.” He self-deprecatingly concludes, “At least I’ll always have my Oscar for Kangaroo Jack. They can never take that away from me.”
In all seriousness, Black-ish was one of several shows to get shut out in its final season. Issa Rae was nominated as Lead Actress for Insecure, but her groundbreaking HBO comedy was otherwise left out of the major categories. NBC’s juggernaut This Is Us also came up completely empty on its curtain call. Blame an overly crowded list of nominees or racial blindspots in the Television Academy (which certainly exist, despite notable exceptions amongst this year’s nominations), but some shows just don’t get the recognition they may deserve until after they’re off the air.