Why I’m Pushing ‘Community’ Pals Ken Jeong, Yvette Nicole Brown and Joel McHale as This Year’s Emmy Hosts
Normally, it would be a little jarring for it to be August and still not have an official Emmy host announcement. But these are not normal times. This week, the Television Academy and Fox officially moved the 75th Primetime Emmys to January 15 (Martin Luther King Jr. Day), marking the first such postponement since 2001.
In a previous column I made a strong case for moving the ceremony to November, when at least the Emmys wouldn’t feel too stale or crash into Oscars season. But since Fox is moving forward with January, the silver lining is that there’s a lot more time — five months, as a matter of fact — for producer Jesse Collins Entertainment, along with Fox and the TV Academy, to figure out how to make this major Emmy anniversary a show to remember.
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Much of that will come down to who hosts the telecast. The last time Fox aired the Emmys, in 2019, the network opted to go without a host. It had been looking to shake up the telecast and focus more on the categories and TV anniversaries. Fox and the TV Academy were also inspired by that year’s host-less Oscars, which actually saw a 12% boost in viewership despite not having an emcee.
The Emmys weren’t as lucky, unfortunately. That 2019 telecast dropped to under 10 million viewers for the first time — and in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic kicked off two years of Emmy pivots. The ceremony has wisely returned to hosts to help anchor the telecast during such uncertain times, starting with ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel in 2020, deftly keeping the show going from a mostly empty Staples Center — with nominees and winners accepting from home. CBS employed Cedric the Entertainer, star of its sitcom “The Neighborhood,” in 2021, while “SNL” legend Kenan Thompson further brought back normalcy in 2022 as the Emmys returned to their home base at the Microsoft Theater (now known as the Peacock Theater).
Fox is the only network among the Big 4 broadcasters without a late-night franchise, which makes it tough to guess who might host the Emmys when it’s Fox’s turn at the wheel. (It also didn’t have one in 2003, the only other time this century that the Emmys went sans host.)
There also can’t probably can’t be any movement on the Emmy hosting front until the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes are resolved, as I don’t think anyone wants to get bogged down in the optics of taking such a high-profile gig at this moment. But when the time comes, I think the obvious choice for Fox is right there on its air: “Community” besties Joel McHale and Ken Jeong, both of whom also happen to be Fox MVPs.
Jeong, of course, continues to serve as a panelist on “The Masked Singer” and host of “I Can See Your Voice.” Also at Fox, McHale hosts “Crime Scene Kitchen” and stars in the sitcom “Animal Control.” The buddies hosted the network’s New Year’s Eve special as 2020 turned into 2021, and would have again the following year — except the omicron variant of COVID-19 scrapped those plans.
But let’s not stop there — I would also throw in fellow “Community” alum Yvette Nicole Brown. Brown helped TV Academy CEO Frank Scherma announce the Emmy nominations in July, and she is the superfan that the Emmys could use to remind viewers how excited they should be about this year’s top awards contenders. Brown moderated some of the biggest Emmy FYC events — including “Ted Lasso” and “Wednesday” — and is a nice balance to the lunacy of McHale and Jeong.
And need I remind you that this is the first year of the Emmys at the renamed Peacock Theater, sponsored by the streamer that is eventually making the “Six Seasons and a Move” prophecy come true… once the strikes are over? (Sorry to do this to you, Ken, Joel and Yvette, but you’ll be great.) Plus, Pushing the “Community” theme even further, Fox has put a lot of hope into “Krapopolis,” the new animated series from “Community” creator Dan Harmon. “Krapopolis” has already been renewed for a third season — before the show even has its series premiere on Sept. 24 — so Fox may want to get Harmon involved somehow too.
OK, I’m a touched biased, as “Community” has been an important part of my career — via countless panels, magazine covers and more over the past decade and a half. But it’s also given me plenty of insight into how beloved the people behind that show continue to be. Let’s get a “Community” reunion going for the Emmy telecast and let the festivities pop, pop.
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