Emmys Host Andy Samberg Sings an Ode to Binge-Watching (Plus: His Best Monologue Jokes)
It’s common knowledge that it’s damn near impossible to watch everything that’s on TV these days. (We try, and we fail.) Emmys host Andy Samberg turned our pain into beautiful music at this year’s ceremony, opening the show with a peppy musical number singing the praises of binge-watching.
The sketch opens with Samberg at a dinner party with a group of TV stars (including Yvette Nicole Brown and Timothy Simons) and realizing he’s woefully unprepared to host the Emmys because he hasn’t seen any of the nominated shows. So he seals himself in an underground bunker and emerges with a crazy beard, declaring proudly in song, “I Watched Every Show.”
Dancing through the city streets, Samberg bounds up to stars like Jon Hamm and Kerry Washington to inform them that he’s all caught up on their shows. He’s not all caught up on personal hygiene, though; Washington tells him, “You smell like dog feces.” (To which Samberg replies, “More like human feces!”)
Related: The Complete List of 2015 Emmy Winners
But there are still some gaps in his binge-watching agenda. Samberg runs into Nathan Fillion, who asks him, “Have you seen Castle?” That sends Samberg back into the vault for more binge-watching. Later, we see all the things he missed out on with all that binge-watching, including seeing his own son (played by Billy Eichner!) grow up. But hey, no one said keeping up with TV these days was easy.
After the opening sketch, Samberg settled in for a monologue that took some swipes at TV royalty… and a few simmering celebrity scandals. His best bits:
* After saying this night is all about celebrating television, he yelled, “Sorry, books! Not tonight!” We also got a rather rude on-screen graphic: “Suck It, Books!”
* Samberg made reference to the recent troubles of Subway pitchman Jared Fogle, Bill Cosby, and The Jinx subject Robert Durst, saying it’s “not a good year for dudes who love hoagies.”
* If winners’ speeches ran long, Samberg warned, “you’re gonna have to deal with the mean nun from Game of Thrones.” Jane Lynch came out in full GoT regalia to sell the joke, shouting, “Shame! Shame! Shame!”
* On Paula Deen’s stint on Dancing With the Stars: “If I wanted to see an intolerant lady dance, I would’ve went to one of Kim Davis’s four weddings.”
* On all the great shows we’re saying goodbye to this year, like Mad Men and Parks and Recreation: “We also said goodbye to True Detective… although it’s still on the air.” (Ouch. Sorry, Vince Vaughn.)
* It’s Jon Hamm’s last chance to win an Emmy for Mad Men, but Samberg said maybe Hamm could be back, Better Call Saul-style, for an upcoming Mad Men prequel series, entitled “Dick Whitman: Horny Hobo.” (Maybe it’s because we’re still suffering from Mad Men withdrawals, but… we’d totally watch that.)
