'Simpsons,' Clarkson Win Creative Arts Emmys

Zap2It.com | August 20, 2006

The Simpsons cast

HBO leads with 17 awards, ABC snags 10

LOS ANGELES -- HBO got an early leg up on its Emmy competition Saturday, taking home 17 awards at the Creative Arts portion of the awards.

Five of those awards, which honor the technical aspects of TV production, when to the network's miniseries "Elizabeth I." Two other HBO offerings, "Rome" and the documentary "Baghdad ER," each won four honors.

ABC took home 10 awards at the ceremony, which was hosted by magicians Penn & Teller. NBC won eight awards, and CBS, FOX and PBS each took seven.

"The Simpsons," television's longest-running prime-time cartoon, picked up its ninth Emmy for outstanding animated program for the episode "The Seemingly Never-Ending Story." It beat out the controversial "Trapped in the Closet" episode of "South Park," among others. Frequent "Simpsons" guest star Kelsey Grammer also accepted an award for best voice-over performance (which was previously announced).

The Creative Arts Emmys also honor the best guest performances of the season. This year's guest-acting honors went to Patricia Clarkson ("Six Feet Under"), Christian Clemenson ("Boston Legal"), Cloris Leachman ("Malcolm in the Middle") and Leslie Jordan ("Will & Grace").

FOX's "24," which is among the leading nominees in next week's Primetime Emmys, won two Creative Arts awards, for music composition and editing. ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" won the award for best reality program (non-competition division) and the Disney Channel phenomenon "High School Musical" shared the honor for best children's program with HBO's "I Have Tourette's But Tourette's Doesn't Have Me."

A full list of Creative Arts winners is available here.