The 67th Primetime Emmy Awards will be the first to honor sketch comedy with its own trophy, and you can thank Comedy Bang! Bang! host and sketch veteran Scott Aukerman for that. As Aukerman told Southern California Public Radio’s The Frame (in an interview since transcribed and reprinted in Vulture), an open letter he wrote to the Television Academy helped spur the decision to introduce the award for Outstanding Variety Sketch Series. No stranger to the academy thanks to his Emmy-winning work on Between Two Ferns, Aukerman was then invited to discuss splitting the existing Outstanding Variety Series award into two separate categories, at first to make sure the pool of current TV sketch was deep enough to merit its own honor. “Once I started rattling off all of the sketch shows, they realized there are a whole bunch of shows out there that never, ever get nominations,” Aukerman told The Frame. “I think Saturday Night Live is the only true sketch show that’s been included in the category in the last decade.”
While Between Two Ferns is poised to defend its Outstanding Short Format Live-Action Entertainment Program title this year, the TV version of Comedy Bang! Bang! failed to nab a sketch series nomination. But as Aukerman also revealed in the interview, he’ll be a part of the award ceremony regardless, working in the writers’ room alongside CBB’s Neil Campbell. And that means “Emmy nominees Key & Peele, Inside Amy Schumer, and Drunk History” are only the beginning of the good words Scott Aukerman will introduce into the Emmy conversation this year.