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Since 1967, the Best Comedy Actress Primetime Emmy category has seen 13 direct costar showdowns involving seven different combinations of female leads. While this list is three entries longer than the corresponding male roster, the category still falls significantly behind the other 10 lead or supporting ones, all of which boast cast mate battle totals of at least 20. Scroll through our chronological photo gallery to learn more about the 13 cases of dual or triple nominations in the Best Comedy Actress category.

Unlike the Best Comedy Actor list, this female one includes more than just pairs of clashing costars. After “The Golden Girls” actresses Bea Arthur, Rue McClanahan, and Betty White blazed a trail in 1986 as the first trio of performers to receive same-year nominations for a single continuing series (and repeated the feat three more times), they were emulated by “Desperate Housewives” stars Marcia Cross, Teri Hatcher, and Felicity Huffman in 2005. This remained...

Since 1967, the Best Comedy Actress Primetime Emmy category has seen 13 direct costar showdowns involving seven different combinations of female leads. While this list is three entries longer than the corresponding male roster, the category still falls significantly behind the other 10 lead or supporting ones, all of which boast cast mate battle totals of at least 20. Scroll through our chronological photo gallery to learn more about the 13 cases of dual or triple nominations in the Best Comedy Actress category.

Unlike the Best Comedy Actor list, this female one includes more than just pairs of clashing costars. After “The Golden Girls” actresses Bea Arthur, Rue McClanahan, and Betty White blazed a trail in 1986 as the first trio of performers to receive same-year nominations for a single continuing series (and repeated the feat three more times), they were emulated by “Desperate Housewives” stars Marcia Cross, Teri Hatcher, and Felicity Huffman in 2005. This remained...

For most of the late 1970s, ABC essentially reigned supreme among TV networks with the hit series “Happy Days” and its spinoff, “Laverne & Shirley.” In the fall of 1977, new sitcoms “Three’s Company” and “Soap” were chosen to follow the sister series in the Tuesday night lineup, leading to an increase in the network’s popularity. Although “Soap” was the least favored of the four, it attracted a strong following due to its quirky premise. Presented a parody of daytime soap operas, the show focused on two sisters and their respective turbulent households.

“Soap” won four Emmys during its four-season run, half of which came in 1980 in honor of the acting work of one of its pairs of leads. The Best Comedy Actor prize went to Richard Mulligan (47), while the corresponding female award went to his TV wife, Cathryn Damon, who would turn 50 later that week. At the time of her victory,...

This year the Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony will look a little different in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. Jimmy Kimmel will be hosting a virtual ceremony; exactly how this will be carried out will be another interesting and likely memorable part of our current times. However, there have been quite a few times the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences has been challenged by an outside event affecting the ceremony, with one such event forty years ago also resulting in a largely empty auditorium – but for an entirely different reason.

An ongoing strike by members of the Screen Actors Guild resulted in a very small crowd at the 32nd gala, which was hosted by Steve Allen and Dick Clark at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium on September 7, 1980. Most presenters and 51 of the 52 nominated performers opted to boycott the event, with the exception of one brave soul who chose to accept his statuette in person.

Jen and Judy have one more thing between them, but this one is no secret at all. “Dead to Me” stars Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini both scored Best Comedy Actress Emmy nominations Tuesday, joining a short list of co-stars to be nominated in the same year.

The two are just the seventh pair to be shortlisted together (for a total of 13 sets of nominations) since 1966, when the Emmys established the category as we know it. The most recent duo was “Grace and Frankie’s” Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin in 2017. The only other instance this century occurred in 2005 when “Desperate Housewives” bagged three spots for Marcia Cross, Teri Hatcher and Felicity Huffman. The trio broke through 16 years after another trio — “The Golden Girls'” Bea Arthur, Rue McClanahan and Betty White — notched the last of their four straight nominations together in 1989.

This is the sixth Emmy nomination for Applegate, who...

Last year, Christina Applegate earned a surprise Best Comedy Actress Emmy nomination for her then-new show “Dead to Me,” while her leading lady co-star Linda Cardellini was left out in a cold. But the pair may have double to celebrate this year as Cardellini has just entered the top six in sixth place in our odds, setting the stage for them to be just the 13th pair of co-stars to be nominated in the category and just the third in 31 years.

Since the Emmys established genre-specific categories in 1966, these are the only times co-stars have been nominated for Best Comedy Actress in the same year:

1. Elizabeth Montgomery and Agnes Moorehead, “Bewitched” (1967)

2. Cathryn Damon and Katherine Helmond, “Soap” (1978)

3. Cathryn Damon and Katherine Helmond, “Soap” (1980) (Damon won)

4. Cathryn Damon and Katherine Helmond, “Soap” (1981)

5. Jane Curtin and Susan Saint James, “Kate & Allie” (1984) (Curtin won)

6. Jane Curtin and Susan Saint James, “Kate & Allie” (1985) (Curtin won)

7. Bea Arthur,...

It’s only happened 14 times that fictional TV husbands and wives have won Emmy Awards in the same year. Tour our photo gallery above to see who they were over the past 70 years. Our research is for drama and comedy series only (not TV movies or limited series).

And there are four possibilities that could join them at the 2019 ceremony: Jason Bateman and Laura Linney (“Ozark”), Milo Ventimiglia and Mandy Moore (“This Is Us”), Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara (“Schitt’s Creek”), and Tony Shalhoub and Marin Hinkle (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”).

Here is a full list of the 14 couples who have achieved this before:

2014

Bryan Cranston and Anna Gunn (“Breaking Bad”)

2011

Ty Burrell and Julie Bowen (“Modern Family”)

2003

James Gandolfini and Edie Falco (“The Sopranos”)

2001

James Gandolfini and Edie Falco (“The Sopranos”)

1993

Tom Skerritt and Kathy Baker (“Picket Fences”)

1991

Timothy Busfield and Patricia Wettig (“thirtysomething”)

1986

Williams Daniels and...

It’s only happened 14 times that fictional TV husbands and wives have won Emmy Awards in the same year. Tour our photo gallery above to see who they were over the past 70 years. Our research is for drama and comedy series only (not TV movies or limited series).

And there are four possibilities that could join them at the 2019 ceremony: Jason Bateman and Laura Linney (“Ozark”), Milo Ventimiglia and Mandy Moore (“This Is Us”), Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara (“Schitt’s Creek”), and Tony Shalhoub and Marin Hinkle (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”).

Here is a full list of the 14 couples who have achieved this before:

2014

Bryan Cranston and Anna Gunn (“Breaking Bad”)

2011

Ty Burrell and Julie Bowen (“Modern Family”)

2003

James Gandolfini and Edie Falco (“The Sopranos”)

2001

James Gandolfini and Edie Falco (“The Sopranos”)

1993

Tom Skerritt and Kathy Baker (“Picket Fences”)

1991

Timothy Busfield and Patricia Wettig (“thirtysomething”)

1986

Williams Daniels and...

No series has won the Best Comedy Actor and Best Comedy Actress Emmys in the same year since “30 Rock” pulled it off for Alec Baldwin and Tina Fey in 2008. That’s partly due to people like Julia Louis-Dreyfus (“Veep”) and Jim Parsons (“The Big Bang Theory”) dominating without co-stars in the corresponding category. But Louis-Dreyfus is out this year, the Emmys haven’t nominated Parsons since 2014, and we have a few his-and-her contenders in the mix who could bring home double gold.

“Black-ish” is the safest bet for lead nominations for Anthony Anderson and Tracee Ellis Ross; it would be the fourth for the former and the third for the latter. Though Donald Glover (“Atlanta”) and Rachel Brosnahan (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”) are the odds-on favorites, Anderson is in second place and Ross is in third (behind “Mom”’s Allison Janney) — and they both have backers for the win.

By the early ‘80s, Melissa Sue Anderson was ready to get some dirt under Mary Ingall’s fingernails, and shed her squeaky clean image. Late in ’81 she would entertain horror audiences with her big screen turn in Happy Birthday to Me, but earlier that same year she stayed closer to home on the tube playing a big bad teenage witch in Midnight Offerings – a role which I’m sure Pa Ingalls would not approve of.

The telemovie premiered Friday, February 27th, 1981 on ABC. It’s neighbor CBS had the kings of Friday night, Dukes of Hazzard and Dallas going on, while poor old NBC had Nero Wolfe followed by that party animal David Brinkley. (Let’s just say the Peacock was still a few seasons away from working their way out of the cellar.) But ABC, for some reason, had always not only nurtured horror, but thrived on it – and...

When the current theatrical reboot (a sequel and toothless TV remake had already come and gone) of Carrie was announced, there was a lot of teeth gnashing and cries of "leave the classics alone!," mostly by me. But as details began to leak out, the prospect became more intriguing. Gay director Kimberly Pierce gave us the masterpiece Boys Don't Cry, and the fabulous Julianne Moore signed up to play Carrie's psychotic fanatical mother. Chloe Moretz doesn't look anything like Stephen King's Carrie, but then neither did Sissy Spacek, so I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.

Carrie was supposed to open in March, but the studio has pushed it back to October, which means they're either hoping for Halloween dollars ... or it's a sign of a troubled production.

But while we wait to rain judgment down on the new version of our favorite telekinetic teen, let's take...

Mixing Comedy & Soap: A History of the Serialized Situation Comedy

By Doug Prinzivalli

As one of the producers of the hit web series Pretty - a parody hybrid of reality TV and soaps - I thought it would be a fun idea to take a brief look at the long history of the serialized situation comedy. The idea of mixing comedy with soap elements is not a new one - in fact it started over 60 years ago.

The First Hundred Years (CBS 1950-52) was a mildly humorous daily soap about newlyweds who are gifted with a bat-infested Victorian mansion. Sounds pretty wacky to me. After less than two years, it was replaced by something called The Guiding Light.

The Egg & I (CBS 1951-52) Based on a book by Betty MacDonald and the 1947 film (starring Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray) that followed, this show followed the misadventures of city folk...

This is the second part of an interview with producer Marsha Posner Williams. In the first part, we discussed how Williams began her career in television, working on the legendary ABC sitcom, Soap.

As one of the few people to work on the show from the very beginning to its untimely cancellation, Williams shared some of the casting challenges behind the scenes, her first-hand experience with the picketing and controversy surrounding the show, production challenges, and personal memories of the very talented cast, like Katherine Helmond, Robert Mandan, Robert Guillaume, Cathryn Damon, Richard Mulligan, Jay Johnson, and Billy Crystal.

In the second part of the interview, Williams talks briefly about other Soap alumnae like Ted Wass, Jimmy Baio, Diana Canova, Arthur Peterson, John Byner, and Donnelly Rhodes. She also puts to rest the idea that Soap was intentionally ended with one of...