Eugene and Dan Levy Made Hosting the Emmys Look Easy

Eugene and Dan Levy opened Sunday’s 76th Emmy Awards with a disclaimer. The father-son Schitt’s Creek duo were not, they explained, stand-ups like most awards-show hosts. “I wouldn't actually even call us hosts. We're more like actors acting like hosts,” said Dan. “If things go south,” Eugene joked, “my name is pronounced ‘Martin Short.’” It was a bit of polite self-effacement from the extremely Canadian Levys. In reality, though, there was no need for it. The emcees imbued what is always a long night—and was, this time around, full of predictable wins—with many moments of lighthearted fun, without trying too hard to roast their fellow actors or land headline-making zingers. To state what should be obvious to TV producers but rarely seems to inform their choice of hosts for the Emmys or any other awards telecast: Charm and chemistry go a long way.

Happily, with awards-show ratings in free fall, ABC tried something new recruiting faces TV fans were actually excited to see. The past decade’s worth of Emmys hosts have been pretty bland, ranging from the same late-night personalities we see every week—Jimmy Kimmel (twice), Stephen Colbert, SNL’s Michael Che and Colin Jost—to past-their-prime comedians like Cedric the Entertainer and Kenan Thompson. (The last time a woman hosted? Jane Lynch in 2011.) It was only eight months ago that black-ish star Anthony Anderson hosted a strike-delayed 2023 ceremony, and I’m probably not alone in recalling precisely nothing about that performance.

The Levys were an inspired choice, in part because they excel at what they have evocatively described as “bicker-banter” (while they didn’t technically host the 2020 SAG Awards, they did open the ceremony, wonderfully) and in part because there is still so much goodwill for the sleeper-hit Canadian sitcom they created and starred in together. They also seemed to have the right perspective going into what is, more often than not, a thankless gig. “The challenge,” Dan noted in the pair’s recent Good Morning America interview, “is not humiliating yourself on television in front of millions and millions of people.” (Doesn’t Jo Koy know it.)

Their introduction set the tone for an unusually laid-back, gently upbeat evening, with most punchlines aimed at nominated shows—and each other—rather than nominees’ personal lives or the phantom of "wokeness" or the low-hanging fruit that is American Politics. (Side note: What do we even call an opening speech given by a duo? Monologue sounds wrong, but so does dialogue.) Like Schitt’s Creek, the Levys’ back-and-forth was just spicy enough to cut the sweetness. “My most rewarding dad role,” Eugene told Dan, “has been being your dad [pause] in Schitt’s Creek.” By which he meant, he won an Emmy for it. When cheers broke out, Dan Gamely played the wounded boy: “Why are we applauding bad parenting?”

Though you wouldn’t know it to watch the standard awards show, funny jokes don’t have to be mean jokes. Eugene got in some smartly written meta-humor by referencing the endless debate over whether The Bear was actually a comedy (a category it would all but sweep, notably losing best comedy series to Hacks), then saying: “In the true spirit of The Bear, we will not be making any jokes.” Dan struck the right tone with his layered one-liner on the Emmys finally nominating the excellent Native American dramedy Reservation Dogs, for its final season: “The Academy found a show that has been creatively thriving for years and said, ‘Look what we discovered!’”

The bicker-banter carried the rest of the night, as the Levys settled into the roles of neurotic, out-of-touch dad and cheeky, easily exasperated son. Dan dispensed “fun facts” about iconic roles his father had lost to other actors and Eugene finally struck back with: “And how was your audition for Ripley?” Introducing a segment on memorable TV dads, Dan sang the praises of Tony Soprano—a murderer, as Eugene noted. Dan: “Well, his heart was in the right place.” Eugene spoke for all of us at home, forced for too many years to endure bad awards-show crowd work, when he complained that going out into the audience was “uncomfortable.” Speaking of discomfort, Dan almost managed to defuse the telecast’s celebration of a perennially loaded sort of character: “And now, a TV archetype everyone in this room agrees on: Cops!”

The evening ended—less than 10 minutes late, which counts as early for this cursed genre of live television—the only way it could, with a reunion of the Levys’ Schitt’s Creek family. First came Annie Murphy, taking a page from her delightfully delusional character, Alexis Rose, and ready to be fêted as “the shining star of Schitt’s Creek”—only to learn that the description was really meant for Rose matriarch Catherine O’Hara. Eugene’s TV spouse materialized to present the nominees of the night’s final category, best comedy series. With America at the edge of its collective seat, or just anxious to get to bed on a Sunday night, she delivered a valedictory pivot worthy of the melodramatic Moira: “And the Emmy goes to… No, must we? Must we really choose just one winner? When all the nominees have done such wonderful, hilarious work?” 

Truth be told, I wish we’d seen a bit more of the reunited Roses. But it’s not every year that the Emmys leave us wanting more. To the remarkable extent that they did so in their second 2024 ceremony, the Levys deserve a lot of credit—and perhaps an invitation to do it again in 2025.