‘A Black Lady Sketch Show’ Enters Emmy Race But Sketch Category Down To Three Nominees

Peter White
·3 min read

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HBO’s A Black Lady Sketch Show has entered the Emmy race but the sketch category has been decimated to only three nominees.

Robin Thede’s comedy has been nominated in the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Variety Sketch Series category alongside Saturday Night Live and Drunk History.

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It comes as the Emmy rule change means that categories with less than 20 submissions have a sliding scale between zero and four nominations.

While it might increase A Black Lady Sketch Show’s chances against regular winner SNL, it is a blow for shows such as Sherman’s Showcase, At Home With Amy Sedaris, Alternatino with Arturo Castro, The Iliza Shlesinger Sketch Show, Crank Yankers and Astronomy Club.

Two of last year’s nominees, Hulu’s I Love You, America with Sarah Silverman and Showtime’s Who Is America? were no longer eligible. The streamer cancelled Silverman’s show in January 2019, while it’s a mystery as to whether Sacha Baron Cohen will ever make more episodes of his political prank show.

A Black Lady Sketch Show, which launched on HBO in August 2019, features Thede, Ashley Nicole Black, Quinta Brunson and Gabrielle Dennis. It is the first major sketch show to be created by, written by and starring Black women.

One of its breakout sketches was The Event, where Thede predicted the end of the world.

Thede recently told Deadline that she considers sketch comedy her home and A Black Lady Sketch Show is the seventh sketch show she has worked on including Chocolate News and In the Flow with Affion Crockett.

“I don’t just do one thing. I’m always the sort of person who does a million things at once. So, as opposed to one genre, I can explore 50 genres in six episodes, and make all these different little short films,” she said. “That’s the way I look at sketch. On this show it’s very narrative. So, we tell stories, we involve you in the characters, the characters recur. For me, it was really fun to be able to explore, especially since it was Black women playing the characters, being able to explore sketch characters a little more dimensionally than you’re able to do, on other shows. And our sketches are longer,” she added.

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