Emmy's Highlights: Did Nate Bargatze's Charity Stunt Succeed in Shortening Emmy Speeches?

The Emmys were last night, and host Nate Bargatze hyped a plan to keep acceptance speeches short.

Every winner is supposed to have 45 seconds to talk, but getting celebrities to stick to that is damn near impossible.

Nate said he'd donate $100,000 to the Boys & Girls Club. BUT that he'd take away $1,000 for every second that winners go over their allotted time . . . and he'd ADD $1,000 for every second that winners left on the table.

They tracked the changing donation total throughout the show . . . and (DRUM ROLL!) . . . in the end, the final donation was: $350,000.

But NO . . . Nate did NOT succeed in shortening the show by 250 seconds. Instead, it went LONG . . . as usual . . . and he called the winners' execution "embarrassing."

The total ended up being NEGATIVE. (But thankfully, that didn't mean the CHILDREN would be forced to cough up money to the Academy.) (???)

Instead, CBS donated $100,000 out of the kindness of their corporate hearts and Nate chipped in $250K.

(Which is cool, but still . . . these are the HOLLYWOOD ELITE. They could've probably pooled together more than that for a bit that lasted ALL NIGHT.)

(A lot of people enjoyed having this sub-plot to follow . . . but others were critical . . . even before the evening started . . . saying it just distracted from the actual ceremony, without any real pay-off.)

Now, as for the actual awards . . .

The biggest winners were: "The Studio" (Best Comedy Series) . . . "The Pitt" (Best Drama Series) . . . and "Adolescence" (Best Limited Series). By the way, 15-year-old "Adolescence" breakout Owen Cooper made history as the "youngest-ever male Emmy winner in any acting category."

"The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" won Best Variety Talk Series . . . despite being canceled by CBS, which AIRED the Emmys. (Something tells me Stephen will be scooped up the minute his contract is up.)

"Last Week Tonight with John Oliver" won Best Variety Scripted Series, beating "Saturday Night Live". But "SNL 50: The Anniversary Special" won Best Live Variety Special.

In announcing the winner for Best Variety Scripted Series, "Survivor" superstar Jeff Probst hosted a mini "Tribal Council" with John Oliver and "SNL" boss Lorne Michaels.

Speaking of "Survivor": "The Traitors" beat heavyweights "Survivor", "The Amazing Race", "Top Chef", and "RuPaul's Drag Race".

And speaking of "SNL", Nate Bargatze's opening monologue was a play on his famous "SNL" sketch "Washington's Dream," where he poked fun at the absurdity of contemporary television and streaming.

He jokingly called CBS the, quote "Caucasian Broadcast System!" (You can watch the entire thing, here. But I'll donate $1,000 to the Boys & Girls Club for every second that you stop watching early.) (???)

(There are more videos on the Television Academy's YouTube page. You can find the "snubs," here. Oh, and for what it's worth, Hulk Hogan was left out of the "In Memoriam" segment.)

(Check out all the winners you care about, here.)

Originally posted on September 15th, 2025

Dangerous Dave