The Television Critics Association has spoken, and has declared John Mulaney Presents: Everybody’s in LA the late-night show of the year.
The winners of the 40th annual TCA Awards were announced on Friday with the experimental Netflix series taking home the award for Outstanding Achievement in Variety, Talk or Sketch. Mulaney beat out late-night stalwarts Saturday Night Live, Late Night with Seth Meyers, The Daily Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver for the honor.
The Outstanding Achievement in Variety, Talk or Sketch category was introduced in 2018, when Oliver took home the top honor (as he did again in 2019 and 2021). Prior to that, late-night programs competed in the Outstanding Achievement in News and Information category, which saw them going toe-to-toe with the likes of 60 Minutes, Frontline, Meet the Press, and The Rachel Maddow Show.
The genre finally managed to break through in the early 2000s, when The Daily Show with Jon Stewart was nominated in 2002-2003 then won the following year. The award went to Last Week Tonight in 2014-2015 and Full Frontal with Samantha Bee nabbed it the following year.
The big question, of course, is what—if anything—Mulaney’s TCA win could mean for his Emmy chances.
As we previously reported, Everybody’s in LA’s TCA nomination knocked The Late Show with Stephen Colbert out of the running. While the TCA’s Outstanding Achievement in Variety, Talk or Sketch winner has gone on to nab the Emmy for Outstanding Variety Talk Series a few times in the past, that’s mainly because Last Week Tonight dominated at the Emmys from 2016 to 2022 (The Daily Show with Trevor Noah ended Oliver’s streak in 2023).
While new Emmy rules will see Oliver competing against Saturday Night Live for Outstanding Scripted Variety Series (assuming, of course, they both receive nominations—which they will), Mulaney’s six-episode series will compete for Outstanding Talk Series if it scores a nomination. (Same goes for the YouTube phenomenon Hot Ones, which was submitted for the first time this year.) Which means that, again, one (or more) of the network mainstays could find themselves nomination-less if Mulaney scores an Emmy nod.
For the moment, all Mulaney has to say is that “We are psyched” about the TCA Award. Let’s see if Wednesday’s Emmy nominations bring the comedian more good news.
