An Emmy host has to keep viewers at home entertained and serve as a brand ambassador for the network, the Television Academy, and the medium of television itself. Here's a crib sheet for rookie emcee Andy Samberg and for viewers at home, ranking the hosts of the last 20 Emmy shows. 
 
 20. Best Reality Host nominees (2008) This Emmy ceremony came a few months after a writers' strike, and it looked like no wordsmiths had bothered to return to craft jokes for these five nominated reality-TV personalities -- Tom Bergeron, Heidi Klum, Howie Mandel, Ryan Seacrest, and Jeff Probst. "We have absolutely nothing," said Probst (later the category winner) after several minutes of awkward group stammering. Not even Bergeron and William Shatner ripping off Klum's tuxedo to reveal a skimpy getup underneath could get a rise out of the audience. Even the team that produced the Emmycast admitted later that this show was terrible. 
 
 19. Bryant Gumbel (1997) CBS chief Les Moonves had the veteran morning show anchor host the Emmy night proceedings in order to promote his hiring of the "Today" newsman away from NBC. Gumbel may have made a fine living advertisement for his new network, but he also made for a dull Emmy host. As he'd promised when he first landed the gig, he wouldn't sing, dance, or crack jokes, but would maintain his air of dignity. He kept his word, and he presided over one of the dullest Emmy ceremonies in memory. 
 
 18. Ryan Seacrest (2007) You can't fault the "American Idol" host's work ethic. He segued onto the Emmy stage for the Fox broadcast of the awards show after spending two hours hosting E!'s red carpet coverage. And it's to his credit that he didn't even try to make jokes during an opening monologue. But not even the always-game Seacrest could master the bizarre theater-in-the-round staging of the event. (Neither could the winners, who had to deliver their speeches with their backs to half the audience.) At least he did what he's best at: getting out of the way in order to let others shine. 
 
 17. Jason Alexander and Cybill Shepherd (1995) The "Seinfeld" and "Cybill" stars are both veteran song-and-dance performers, but those talents were little in evidence (aside from a campy opening tango) during a tired evening. Alexander did score with a bit that had him serving canapés to the audience. Shepherd tried with a bit that involved the fans in the bleachers out on the red carpet, but her mic didn't work, and the gimmick fell flat. Her liveliest moment came when she was caught backstage swigging a bottle of water as her category was introduced, and as she lost Best Comedy Actress to perennial victor Candice Bergen for "Murphy Brown." Both hosts were low-wattage enough to be upstaged by future Emmy emcee Ellen DeGeneres, doing a backstage bit that included a joke about TV lifeguard David Hasselhoff bravely rescuing an Olsen twin who'd fallen into a punchbowl. 
 
 16. Paul Reiser, Oprah Winfrey, and Michael J. Fox (1996) "You get an Emmy! And you get an Emmy! And you get an Emmy!" The 48th edition of the awards ceremony would have been a lot more entertaining if the producers had let co-host Oprah pull a stunt like that. But she remained dignified and forgettable. Fox was his usual impish self, and Reiser did his self-effacing shtick to the point of embarrassment. Five minutes into the show, the "Mad About You" star was already apologizing for the quality of the joke-writing. Which he was right to do, since it never got any better. 
 
 15. Jane Lynch (2011) The "Glee" star may be one of the funniest (and most ubiquitous) character actors on TV, but her offbeat humor didn't always translate, especially in the conceptual opener that had all of TV's notable series living together as housemates. Still, she had some good taped bits (particularly the one that had her playing the evil mastermind behind the toxic wave of New Jersey-themed shows), and she and Paula Abdul even managed to make the obligatory introduction of the awards-tallying accountants funny. And she got off at least one superb one-liner: "A lot of people are very curious why I'm a lesbian... Ladies and gentlemen, the cast of 'Entourage.'" 
 
 14. Jenna Elfman and David Hyde Pierce (1999) Call it the "Dharma & Niles" show, and yes, it was as awkward and unfunny as that sounds. Elfman and Hyde Pierce are both winning comic character actors, but neither could save an opening number that had them in purple unitards, doing an interpretive dance tribute to various popular shows. Hyde Pierce was funnier as a winner, back in his tux and accepting a trophy for his "Frasier" work, quipping, "So glad I put on pants." Elfman's similar gift for comic timing was nowhere in evidence in her loopy performance as co-host. 
 
 13. Nobody (1998) In the Emmy ceremony's 50th year, what single television personality was august-yet-funny enough to preside over a history-minded evening heavy on nostalgic montages and celebrity recollections of their own lifetimes of TV-watching? Nobody, that's who. The show went hostless, and while the montages and memories were entertaining and often poignant, the show dragged on for nearly four hours. The liveliest moment was "The Practice" co-star Camryn Manheim's famous "This is for all the fat girls!" victory speech. 
 
 12. Neil Patrick Harris (2013) Even Harris seemed tired of having to go through another Harris-hosted awards show. His opener was full of self-referential jokes about host fatigue, including a staged squabble among Emmy emcees past. Indeed, this was one of the glummest Emmy shows ever, with several breakout "In Memoriam" eulogies for individual dead artists and even a nod to the JFK assasination 50 years earlier. Not even Harrris's' deliberately superfluous dance numbers, featuring the "Emmy Gold Dancers," could breathe life into the ceremony. 
 
 11. Ellen DeGeneres (2005) After the heroic job she did in 2001, Ellen's return to the Emmy podium in 2005 was kind of a letdown. DeGeneres herself joked that she'd rather be hosting the Oscars. (All in good time; she landed that coveted job in 2007 and 2014.) She resorted to bits that had her popping up in far-flung corners of the auditorium (best gag: encountering "Desperate Housewives"' lone snubbed star, Eva Longoria, in the nosebleed seats), but which also kept her off-screen for far too much of the show. For all her running around, DeGeneres didn't have enough oomph to do for the post-Katrina Emmys what she'd done for the post-9/11 Emmys: make it save to laugh at celebrity extravagance again. Not that any host could have redeemed a show that featured a running "Emmy Idol" contest that included Donald Trump and Megan Mullally singing the theme to "Green Acres." 
 
 10. Seth Meyers (2014) The current "Late Night" host was his usual wry, understated self, at an occasion that called for a bigger, broader personality. A highlight was his taped bit with Billy Eichner, doing the latter's trademark overzealous interviews with casual fans on the street; then again, since that's Eichner's bit anyway, Meyers didn't really add much to it or even need to be there. 
 
 9. 11 comics (2003) In the three years prior, Garry Shandling, Ellen DeGeneres, and Conan O'Brien had each proved adept at hosting the Emmy show alone, but this year, the three had to share hosting duties with each other and eight other comics (Brad Garrett, Darrell Hammond, George Lopez, Bernie Mac, Dennis Miller, Martin Short, Jon Stewart, and Wanda Sykes). The result was too crowded and chaotic for most of them to shine, but there were some memorable individual moments. Shandling and Garrett offered a Madonna-and-Britney-Spears-inspired same-sex smooch. Stewart denounced TV news broadcasters as "mindless ratings whores" (and not for the last time). Liveliest of all was Sykes, who invaded the audience to ad lib with the stars, pestering Bill Cosby about his forgotten show "The Cosby Mysteries," consoling Kim Cattrall with a flask, having Peter Boyle operate a TV camera, and dancing the Electric Slide with Peter Krause. This sort of supposedly spontaneous putting-seated-stars-on-the-spot byplay is standard now, but Sykes did it first and best. 
 
 8. Jimmy Kimmel (2012) The ABC late-night comic did as good a job as any host of balancing mischievous irreverence toward inflated showbiz egos (including his own, in a mock "In Memoriam" tribute to himself) and fanboy homage to the luminaries being celebrated for their achievements. He had some funny taped bits (including that infamous opener that included a pixelated shot of a naked Lena Dunham eating cake while seated on a backstage toilet) and a bad-taste Twitter prank urging viewers at home to tweet the fake news that Tracy Morgan had passed out onstage. Still, Kimmel helped keep the show moving at a rapid clip -- for once, it actually finished a few minutes shy of three hours. 
 
 7. Garry Shandling (2000) A veteran of late-night talk shows both real and fictional, Shandling scored with a bit inspired by the then-new reality hit "Survivor," calling a tribal council to target one of several real late-night hosts to be voted off the island. Shandling earned big laughs throughout the evening with sharply written jokes. Whether bantering backstage with Sarah Jessica Parker or Calista Flockhart, quipping that "The West Wing" had rejected him to play the vice president because he was "too Jewish," or pointing out that most TV consists of less-than-Emmy-worthy pandering or mediocrity, Shandling deftly skewered the showbiz phoniness of those present, himself included. Some viewers complained that his jokes were too raunchy (he said he was making a point of using the word "orgasm" to prove that the ceremony was live), but Shandling proved the funniest Emmy host in years.. 
 
 6. Conan O'Brien (2002) The "Late Night" host brought his flair for the absurd, starting with a hilarious opening bit that saw him waking up among the Osbourne family (the reality-TV sensation of 2002, lest we forget). During the show, he flirted with Jennifer Aniston (who pretended to flirt back), dragged out his acoustic guitar, and threatened to play off long-winded speechmakers by performing "the worst part" of Jethro Tull's "Aqualung." It all sounds goofy, but it was brilliant. 
 
 5. Garry Shandling (2004) Shandling's return to hosting the show solo was a treat. He took viewers backstage, flirted with David Duchovny (a callback to an old "Larry Sanders Show" episode premise, an in-joke the pair had also referenced during the 1998 Emmys), bantered with Ray Romano and Chris Rock in the men's room, and delivered a sardonic and refreshingly mean running gag about how much he hated reality TV. (It involved CBS chief Les Moonves and HBO czar Chris Albrecht casting Shandling in a fake reality show.) There was even a mini-"Sanders" reunion with sidekick Jeffrey Tambor, who de-mothballed Hank Kingsley's catchphrase, "Hey, now!" when introducing the kids from "The O.C." Shandling whined about "Frasier"'s Kelsey Grammer beating him all those years for Best Comedy Actor, and when Grammer won yet again for the show's final season, he apologized to the host. Yeah, it all sounds sort of quaint now, but back then, no one punctured celebrity vanity (including his own) or did cringe-comedy better than Shandling. 
 
 4. Neil Patrick Harris (2009) In one of his first major hosting gigs, Harris brought down the house from the first moment with his opening song-and-dance number, a plea to viewers to "Put Down the Remote." Later, he got to do a "Dr. Horrible" number with Nathan Fillion, perhaps the Emmys' first real acknowledgement of a popular online-only series. This and his Tonys turn a few months earlier were the performances that made people wish NPH could host every awards show -- a wish we'd all eventually come to regret. 
 
 3. Jimmy Fallon (2010) Fallon, then the new host of NBC's "Late Night," brought his trademark energy, enthusiasm, and musicality to the emcee job. The highlight of his turn was a "Glee"-inspired opening number, an all-star singalong to Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run." A number that's been much-imitated since on other awards shows, it set the tone and pace for one of Emmy's livelier evenings. 
 
 2. Conan O'Brien (2006) In his second Emmy gig, O'Brien won over viewers instantly with a well-executed opener that inserted him into scenes from "Lost" and various Emmy-nominated series. He updated "The Music Man"'s "We Got Trouble" number to bemoan the state of the TV industry. O'Brien's gimmick of keeping the awards telecast short by trapping the beloved Bob Newhart in a glass box with only three hours' worth of oxygen may be the single funniest running gag in Emmy history. And all that was just the first 15 minutes of a side-splitting evening. ||||| Warning: Emmys can kill. 
 
 During the 67th Annual Emmy Awards, host Andy Samburg paid musical tribute to the Mad Men series finale that ended with that famous "I'd Like To Buy The World A Coke" ad. But instead of buying the world a coke, Samburg would love to give the world an Emmy. 
 
 However, Emmys are sharp and heavy and, sadly, not very friendly if you throw them at actor Jim O'Heir — also known as Jerry Gergich on Parks and Recreation. 
 
 At least your intentions were pure, Andy. 
 
 via GIPHY ||||| Andy Samberg has watched every single TV show — and his audience got to reap all the benefits of his hard work. 
 
 Samberg kicked off the 67th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards with a musical tribute (above) to America's new favorite pastime: binge watching. The opening number follows Samberg on his quest to watch every show on television, featuring some talented TV stars like Jon Hamm, Kerry Washington and Will Forte. 
 
 Samberg started off his live monologue with a little self deprecating humor, warning the audience that Justin Timberlake wasn't coming — before launching into a hilarious monologue that didn't shy away from controversial topics like diversity and sexism in the industry. 
 
 Jane Lynch joined Samberg to warn nominees to wrap up their acceptance speeches quickly — unless they want to be intensely shamed, Game of Thrones style. ||||| Uploaded on 
 
 This is a restored version of the famous "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke" ad from 1971. Called the "Hilltop" ad at the time, it is recognized as one of the most beloved and well-known commercials in history. The commercial was highly popular and was part of our 1971 "It's the Real Thing" campaign. It has been consistently celebrated as one of the most memorable and iconic spots in advertising history. "I'd Like To Teach the World to Sing, In Perfect Harmony," was later recorded by the New Seekers and released as a single. This link goes to the Library of Congress Web Site which has an official history of the making of the ad http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ccmphtml/...
– Hosting the Emmys, or any awards show, can lead to an invite back the next year or to comedy pariah status (sorry, Bryant Gumbel). But from initial reaction, Andy Samberg seems to have pulled off a solid performance tonight, with plenty of audience-pleasing knee-slappers, sketches, and celebrity interaction. What's getting buzz: Mashable says the Brooklyn Nine-Nine star gave a "perfectly edgy" opening monologue and a decent musical genuflection to TV binge-watching, complete with star appearances by Jon Hamm, Kerry Washington, and Will Forte. Riffing on the 1971 "I'd like to buy the world a Coke" ad, Samberg led a group of singers in a verdant setting in his "I'd like to give the world an Emmy" parody, though it didn't end quite as pleasantly as the Coke spot. (Hint: Someone gets impaled.) Saturday Night Live alums Andy Samberg and Seth Meyers presented a "World's Best Boss" mug to SNL king Lorne Michaels, citing the fact that, by their count, 40 of the night's nominees owed their start to their former boss. Of course, Grey's Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes was revealed to be the real winner, but Michaels took it in stride. There were many more jokes, including at the expense of Kentucky clerk Kim Davis, Bill Cosby, and Robert Durst. BuzzFeed compiled its 23 favorite moments.