Jimmy Kimmel Kicks Off Virtual 2020 Emmys With Throwback Celebrity Audience Footage

Jimmy Kimmel may be an Emmys veteran, but this year’s show was a brand-new challenge even for him.

The late-night host took the stage at Los Angeles’ Staples Center on Sunday to emcee TV’s biggest night for the third time, and he kicked things off with a little help from Emmys past.

Viewers may have been confused at first when seeing celebrities packed inside the Los Angeles venue in A-list ensembles, applauding and cheering for Jimmy – but the famous faces were all from old award show footage and the reactions courtesy of a well-timed laugh track.

Jimmy addressed the awkwardness of delivering his monologue to an empty arena during the coronavirus pandemic, dubbing this year’s Emmy Awards the “Pan-demmys” and quipping, “You can’t have a virus without a host.”

The dad of two also appeared to note the difficulty of balancing award season enthusiasm during a time of historic unrest sweeping the country.

“It might seem frivolous and unnecessary to do this during a global pandemic, but you know what else seems frivolous and unnecessary? Doing it any other year,” he joked.

Jimmy went on to throw a not-so-subtle dig at having to take special precaution with one of the night’s top nominees.

“HBO can show us a big blue penis, no problem. I can’t say the word Schitt’s, with a c,” he added, referencing top nominee “Watchmen” and comedy fave “Schitt’s Creek,” the latter of which required its logo to appear on the screen every time it was mentioned, per network standards.

Though the pre-pandemic Emmys video may have helped ease fans in to the virtual ceremony, Jimmy wasn’t afraid to pull the curtain back on what the socially-distanced production really looked like.

The 52-year-old soon revealed that the thousands of seats were filled intermittently with celebrity cutouts, with one notable exception – “Ozark” star Jason Bateman in the flesh and attempting to stay under the radar with little success.

— by Erin Biglow