The Highs, Lows and Wildest Moments From the Emmy Awards

Niecy Nash-Betts

Welcome to the 2024 awards season's most confusing event: the 2023 Emmys! While TV's biggest night, the Primetime Emmy Awards, are always a little bit oddly placed on the calendar year, held in September to correspond to the network TV schedule rather than the calendar year like most award shows, the current iteration is even more so. Due to the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes, the 2023 Emmys were bumped from their September 2023 date to one in January 2024. The awards, however, were voted on back last summer and honor TV that aired between June 1, 2022 and May 31, 2023.

While that's a bit of a brain teaser in and of itself, it's made more complicated by the fact that other awards shows like the Golden Globes, Critics Choice Awards and upcoming SAGs will honor nominees from the 2023 calendar year. Thus Season 1 of The Bear has been nominated for awards at these Emmys while Season 2 of the same show has already won Golden Globes.

All that aside, the evening, hosted by Anthony Anderson, included impassioned winner speeches, entertaining jokes, and jaw-dropping red carpet looks. Of course, there were also plenty of weird, wild and unexpected things that happened as well.

Here's a rundown of all the evening's biggest, most memorable moments:

The highs, lows and wildest moments that happened at the 2023 Primetime Emmy Awards (held in 2024!)

High: Anthony Anderson skips an opening monologue

Rather than deliver a monologue full of Succession jokes, to begin the monumental 75th Primetime Emmys, Anderson paid tribute to the shows on air when he was growing up, performing the theme songs of Good Times, Facts of Life and Miami Vice with a choir (and Travis Barker). He then informed the crowd that his mother would yell at them if their speeches went too long and she stood up and ordered him to get the show on the road.

High: Christina Applegate gets a standing ovation

The night's first presenter was Christina Applegate. The legendary actress and comedian, who has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in recent years and has stated that she may never return to acting post-Dead to Me, took the stage to rousing applause. She delivered several witty off-the-cuff remarks about her condition, before passing the Emmy for Best Supporting Actress to Ayo Edebiri ("Ayo, get your a-s up here.")

Wildest: Jennifer Coolidge thanks "all the evil gays"

After winning the Emmy for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama, the comedian thanked her famously gay fan base with a nod to her line "these gays are trying to murder me."

Related: Emmy Awards Red Carpet 2024: See the Fierce Fashion Worn by Your Favorite TV Stars

Low: Anthony Anderson's mom interrupts speeches instead of using playoff music

Anderson introduced the funny bit at the top of the show, but when his mom actually did stand up and started shouting at Jennifer Coolidge to wrap it up, things got very awkward very fast.

High: The Martin reunion

In honor of the 75th anniversary of the Emmys, casts reunited all night, but the Martin reunion, which saw the cast quipping over never being nominated for an Emmy, was one of the most entertaining.

High: Niecy Nash-Bett's powerful acceptance speech

In not only the best speech of the night, but perhaps of the entire awards season to this point, Niecy Nash-Bett's gave a powerful, impassioned speech after winning Best Supporting Actress in a Limited Series for her work on Dahmer.

Wildest: Princess Poppy takes the stage dressed as a goblin

When RuPaul's Drag Race won Best Outstanding Reality Competition Series, one of the Season 15 queens, Princess Poppy (who has retired), joined the other queens on stage dressed as a goblin.

High: The It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia cast as presenters

Despite having never been nominated for an Emmy, the cast of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the longest-ever running sitcom, teamed up to present the Emmy for Best Talk Series. The cast demanded to know why they'd never got an Emmy and determined they'd poke around back stage afterwards to steal one.

Wildest: Paul Walter Hauser delivers a rap as an acceptance speech

When Paul Walter Hauser won his Emmy for Supporting Actor in a Limited Series for Black Bird, he (hand shaking) proceeded to read a rap off his iPhone thanking his supporters. He was also chewing on something the entire time.

High: Special edition of Weekend Update with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler

To present the category of Outstanding Variety Special (Live), the iconic duo from Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update reunited behind the famed desk and read off jokes about each of the nominees.

Wildest: Elton John wins and EGOT

With his win in Outstanding Variety Special (Live) at the Emmys, Elton John completed his EGOT (although unfortunately he was having knee surgery and couldn't be in attendance). On his road to the EGOT, John won two Oscars for Best Original Song in The Lion King and Rocketman, a Tony Award for Aida and six Grammy Awards.

Wildest: Anthony Anderson wears the Rubber Man suit from American Horror Story

While Dylan McDermott was presenting, Anderson dressed up in a black latex bodysuit like the one worn by Rubber Man in American Horror Story. Anderson also prompted us all to see how small his butt is. Thankfully, his mom told him to zip it when he was talking about back sweat.

Low: Award category sweeps

As with the Golden Globes and the Critics Choice Awards, the Primetime Emmys awarded predominantly the same three shows. While Succession, Beef and The Bear are certainly worthy winners, it did create a fairly monotonous show with the same winners delivering speeches for the third time in nine days.

High: Iconic TV actors appearing as presenters

Rather than cull the list of presenters from actors on the nominated shows, to celebrate the 75th Emmys, the majority of the presenters were actors from iconic shows of the past. The cast of The Sopranos, Two and a Half Men, Martin, Cheers, Community, Grey's Anatomy, Mad Men and Saturday Night Live were among some of the presenters for the evening.

Low: The final hour full of random things

After cruising through the first two hours efficiently passing out awards and reuniting iconic TV casts, the third hour of the telecast ground to a halt. Anthony Anderson performed the jumpsuit bit and then we got the introduction of the Ernst & Young accountants, a word from the Television Academy president, a montage of great moments from television past and the presentation of Governor's Award. This was followed by the in memoriam tribute, holding the final four awards of the night hostage for more than a half hour.

Wildest: More people have seen ghosts than knew transgender people

In the acceptance speech for the Governor's Award on behalf of GLAAD, president Sarah Kate Ellis made an emotional plea for more transgender representation in television. She then sited a survey that stated more people claimed to have seen ghosts than know a transgender person.

High: Charlie Puth and The War and Treaty's cover of the Friends theme song

During the in memoriam segment, Charlie Puth teamed up with The War and Treaty for a rendition of his hit song "See You Again." However, as the tribute was finishing up, the trio melded the song with the Friends theme song "I'll Be There For You" as Matthew Perry's face appeared on the screen. The cover was beautiful and I did start crying.

High: Calista Flockhart dancing

In the Ally McBeal tribute, Calista Flockhart and her fellow castmates performed a very sweet choreographed dance.

Wildest: Kieran Culkin asks his wife for more kids

In his acceptance for Best Actor in a Drama for Succession, Culkin (who couldn't get his jacket button undone and threw it on the ground) told his wife, Jazz Charton, that he wants more kids. Apparently she'd told him if he won, she'd think about it.

High: Natasha Lyonne and Tracee Ellis Ross recreate the iconic I Love Lucy chocolate scene

Before presenting the Emmy for Best Comedy Series the pair of comedians recreated the scene from I Love Lucy in which Lucy and Ethel shove chocolates in their mouth. Lyonne and Ross shoved so many chocolates in their clothes and mouths that they were falling out of their dresses when they gave out the award minutes later.

High: Succession and The Bear win the night

In a night of sweeps, both The Bear and Succession took home six Primetime Emmys. The Bear won every comedy category with the exception of Best Actress (where it didn't have a nominee and which Quinta Brunson won) while Succession won every drama category except Best Supporting Actress (Jennifer Coolidge beat poor Gerri). In the Limited Series categories Beef won five Emmys coming in third for the night.

Next, The Complete List of 2023 Primetime Emmy Winners and Nominees