53rd Primetime Emmy Awards: History and Background

The 53rd Primetime Emmy Awards were held on Sunday, November 4, 2001, seven weeks later than originally scheduled. The ceremony was rescheduled twice from its original date of September 16 at the Shrine Auditorium because of the September 11th attacks that occurred five days prior to the event. It was also removed from its rescheduled date of October 7 again at the same venue as a result of the start of the War in Afghanistan. The event was then relocated to the smaller Shubert Theater, which had previously hosted the 1973 and 1976 ceremonies, and would be demolished in 2002. The ceremony was hosted by Ellen DeGeneres and was broadcast on CBS. 27 awards were presented.

Barbra Streisand sang "You'll Never Walk Alone" in a surprise appearance at the close, in honor of the victims of the attacks.

Sex and the City became the first premium channel show to win Outstanding Comedy Series; this was its only major award. The NBC cult hit Freaks and Geeks accomplished a rare feat: though it only ran for one season, it was nominated in two different years for writing. Frasier, now in its eighth season, earned its final Outstanding Comedy Series nomination after eight consecutive nominations including five consecutive wins (seasons 1–5).

The episode "Bowling" made Malcolm in the Middle just the second show, and first comedy, to have two different episodes win awards for directing and writing. The Defenders was the first show to do this in 1963 and 1965. (Specific episodes were not nominated in the comedy categories until the late 1960s). Game of Thrones would also achieve this in 2015 and 2016.

Source and attribution

Text excerpted from 53rd Primetime Emmy Awards by Wikipedia contributors, available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0. The extract is abridged and formatting has been adjusted; the adapted text on this page is shared under the same licence. Revision history.