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We’re weeks away from Emmy season officially starting. May 31 is the cutoff date of eligibility for shows to be considered at the 78th Primetime and Creative Arts Emmy Awards this September, with voting opening on June 11. And now that (more or less) every contender has premiered and been watched, it’s a good time to take stock in the Best Animated Series category, and ask what will probably be nominated this year — and also, what should?
The Emmys, infamously, tend to be a very stagnant awards body. Shows that are anointed with awards early in their run tend to get nominated year after year, and sometimes win year after year, weathering downturns and dropping buzz. Conversely, when a show doesn’t get the Emmys attention in its first year, it can be hard for it to ever get on the Television Academy’s radar; see shows like “Halt and Catch Fire” or “The Leftovers,” which grew in acclaim after somewhat rocky debut seasons but never captured voter interest.
This trend is very easy to spot in some of the more specialized awards categories. The Reality Competition category has famously had only five individual shows win across the 20+ years the award has been handed out. The Animated Series category has had a bit more fluidity, with some particularly cool wins of late to shows like “Blue Eyed Samurai” and “Arcane,” but the nature of animated comedies — which tend to run for years, often decades — means familiar faces tend to keep popping up in the nomination pool.
Most notably, Fox Sunday night staples “The Simpsons” and “Bob’s Burgers” have been nominated every year since 2015 in the category, with “The Simpsons” winning twice in that span and “Bob’s Burgers” winning once. To be clear, I love both these shows, and their nominations aren’t necessarily undeserved: “Bob’s Burgers” is a consistently fun comfort watch that never really had a significant downturn, while recent seasons of “The Simpsons” have been a bit of a creative renaissance for the show by leaning into a more meta, wacky style of humor. Still, it’s a little boring to see them in the category again and again and again every year, essentially blocking up more avenues for other, fresher shows to get recognition. Expect them to be back, but it’d be nice if the voting body considers whether they really need to be.
Neither “The Simpsons” nor “Bob’s Burgers” really seem like they have a chance to win, anyway; in my view, the odds-on favorite is another long-running animated sitcom, albeit one that hasn’t been an Emmys factor since 2021. “South Park,” which returned for two five-episode seasons in July and October of last year, seems like the obvious bet to take the entire thing. After Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s satirical show seemed to have largely lost its ability to really get people offended anymore, the 27th season’s parody of the Trump administration, portraying the President as a psychopath in a sexual relationship with Satan, drew its best ratings in 25 years, tons of online attention, and active criticism from the President and his allies. It’s the buzziest “South Park” has been in eons, and while I don’t think these episodes are necessarily the sharpest in the show’s history, an FYC push from Comedy Central is probably all the show needs to get voters on board to reward it as a statement against Trump.
So those are three slots that comfortably feel locked in a five-slot lineup. What else has a shot? If I had a ballot, the show I would most want to see get nominated and win is “Long Story Short,” Raphael Bob-Waksberg’s wonderful animated dramedy following a close-knit Jewish family across several decades in non-linear fashion. It’s an incredible show, but despite the acclaim Bob-Waksberg’s “Bojack Horseman” received across its long run, it never got much in the way of Emmys attention, only getting two nominations with zero wins. “Long Story Short” is probably more accessible than “Bojack” — serious but less depressing, existing in a fairly down-to-Earth space — and Netflix has been campaigning it as their main play with “Arcane” and “Blue-Eyed Samurai” not in contention. But I’m worried that the lack of buzz around it — the show unfortunately sort of came or went — might make it easy for voters to miss.
The other show I would really hope gets considered is “King of the Hill,” the Hulu reboot of the animated sitcom classic. In a market of very bad TV revivals, “King of the Hill” was a pleasant surprise, a revival that actually understood what made the original show so beloved, while gently pushing its characters into the future in a way that feels honest to where they would be in the 2020s. The long original received a handful of nominations but no wins over its run — if Hulu campaigns it right, I could easily see “King of the Hill” getting in.
In terms of returning contenders, “Primal,” Genndy Tartakovsky’s nearly silent Adult Swim action series, won for its first season and was nominated for its second. The third season, which premiered this January, was just as thrilling as its first two outings, and I see no reason for it to have fallen off voters’ radar in that time. Adult Swim, in general, has a fairly robust slate worth considering, including the very charming new animated series “Haha, You Clowns,” about a trio of slightly dim teen brothers with very big hearts, and “Smiling Friends,” which ended its run this year unexpectedly. I do suspect those last two shows are maybe too offbeat for TV Academy interest. “Rick and Morty,” meanwhile, was last nominated in 2023 for its sixth season, and has largely fallen out of favor since the Justin Roiland controversy; I don’t expect its eighth season, which made fairly little noise, to change that.
So for now, I expect “South Park,” “The Simpsons,” “Bob’s Burgers,” and “Primal” to be near locks for nominations going into the season. The last slot is up for grabs, but I think “King of the Hill” or “Long Story Short” have the best shot, with “Long Story Short” just slightly edging it out. But nominations won’t be announced until July 8, so there’s still some time to hope that something as weird as “Haha, You Clowns” to sneak its way in.
Food and Family in “Long Story Short”
Recently, I attended an FYC event for “Long Story Short” where I got to have a brief but fun conversation with creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg and voice actor Lisa Edelstein, who plays the show’s complicated mother figure Naomi, about their experiences making the show. Enjoy below!
Food is very interwoven into the narrative of “Long Story Short.” What’s its significance to these characters?
Bob-Waksberg: I think everyone has a very complicated relationship with food, and some of that is societal, but some of it is also like your family and your people and your culture and your history, right? Or and your experiences, and so it feels very visceral and a way to remember, and I think a lot of what this show is about is about different ways to remember things, and so food felt like one very specific way that was worth exploring.
One standout episode is specifically about Shira attempting to perfect a family recipe and it not going to plan. How’d your own family traditions find their way into the story?
Bob-Waksberg: Some of it is religious, but so much of it is just family stuff, right? And so we were talking before about, your family language and the inside jokes and the references and the turns of phrase that don’t really make sense from the outside, and you couldn’t really explain it, if you wanted to. Peppering their language with that kind of family ease, I really enjoyed doing
Edelstein: That’s the fun of the format, that it jumps back and forth in time. It’s like building a pastry, all of this ephemera appears.
Lisa, what was it like playing Naomi? She’s a very complex character, if not the easiest to like at points.
Edelstein: I love Naomi. She’s so complicated, but she’s really means her best. She’s coming from the right place. It just maybe doesn’t translate that well. I don’t think she’s very self-aware, but it doesn’t mean she’s lacking in love or good intentions.
Do you have a favorite moment from recording the character?
Edelstein: My favorite thing was right off the bat when she meets the Shiksa girlfriend and can’t say her name because her name is Jen. To her, her name should be Jennifer, and she’s never heard of just Jen, so for several episodes — every actually — whenever my character says her name, I say it in a way that is struggling through the whole season. it has to have a space before it and a space after it, because it’s so profound that it exists as a name to her.
You already have a Season 2 of the show scheduled for this year? What can audiences expect?
Bob-Waksberg: I’m just excited to get to go deeper with these characters and these relationships and kind of uncover different parts of their past, different dynamics, different ways they’ve played off each other, different ways they’re dealing with each other. I mean, the only thing to tease is it’s more, it’s more of them, and learning more about them.
