SNL’s Emmy Nom Windfall Shares a Common Theme: Ryan Gosling

No one brings the party to Saturday Night Live quite like Ryan Gosling.

After much anticipation, the 2024 Emmy nominations were finally unveiled on Wednesday, with Emmy winners Tony Hale (Veep) and Sheryl Lee Ralph (Abbott Elementary) announcing the stacked list. SNL was nominated for a whopping 18 awards, including Outstanding Scripted Variety Series (where they’ll compete against just one other show: Emmy darling Last Week Tonight With John Oliver).

While SNL nabbed nominations across a wide range of categories, there seems to be a common factor among many of them: Ryan Gosling. 

Gosling, who hosted SNL for the third time on April 13, was nominated for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series. The acclaimed episode, which featured Chris Stapleton as musical guest, was packed with memorable bits. There was Gosling’s Ken-centric monologue (delivered alongside his Fall Guy co-star Emily Blunt), a Beavis and Butt-Head-themed sketch that people are still talking about, Kate McKinnon’s return, basketball star Caitlin Clark’s Weekend Update cameo, and plenty more fun.

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The Gosling-hosted episode also paved the way for SNL to score nominations in multiple other categories: Outstanding Makeup For A Variety, Nonfiction Or Reality Program; Outstanding Music Direction; and Outstanding Directing for a Variety Series. Additionally, SNL’s “I’m Just Pete” segment—Pete Davidson’s memorable parody of Gosling’s “I’m Just Ken” performance in Barbie—nabbed Outstanding Picture Editing For Variety Programming (Segment).

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Gosling’s hosting was undeniably one of the highest points of Season 49. Not only did the April episode earn rave reviews, it also generated incredibly impressive viewership numbers. Per Nielsen, the episode delivered 7,510,000 linear viewers, the show’s largest total linear audience since Steve Martin and Martin Short co-hosted on December 10, 2022. 

While Gosling wasn’t the driving factor behind all of SNL’s Emmy nominations, he certainly played a prominent role in many of them. His memorable Beavis and Butt-Head sketch undoubtedly helped SNL nab a nomination in the Outstanding Makeup category, for instance.

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This isn’t the first time a Gosling-hosted SNL episode has racked up Emmy nominations. In 2016, the show was nominated for Outstanding Makeup For A Multi-Camera Series Or Special (Non-Prosthetic) and Outstanding Costumes For A Variety, Nonfiction Or Reality Program.

Obviously, there are a million people involved in the show’s production, and no one person is responsible for its success. But still—if there’s a recipe for SNL‘s Emmy nominations success, Gosling is clearly the secret sauce.

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