Emmy Awards Ceremony

Big Bird and Dick Cavett at the 22nd Annual Emmy Awards, 1970.

Kermit and Cookie at the 1973 Daytime ceremony.

Kermit and Piggy at the 31st Annual Emmy Awards, 1979.

The Sesame Street cast performing in 1982.

Kermit and Piggy at the Emmys in 1989.

LeVar Burton and Big Bird in 1994.

Kermit and Piggy hosting the pre-awards show in 2004.

David Canary and Oscar the Grouch in 2005.

Tyra Banks and Elmo in 2007.

The Sesame cast at the tribute performance in 2009.

Oscar singing at the 2012 ceremony.

A list of appearances that Muppets have made on Emmy Awards and Daytime Emmy Awards broadcasts.

1970, Primetime

Big Bird joins Dick Cavett as a presenter at the prime-time awards, marking the first appearance of a Sesame Street character at the ceremonies.

This was also the first appearance of a redesigned Big Bird puppet, with a fuller head of feathers. Offstage, Big Bird was photographed with Peter Ustinov's head inside his beak.

Big Bird holding an Emmy with Burt Bacharach.

Big Bird meets (eats) Peter Ustinov.

1973, Primetime

Kermit the Frog and Cookie Monster present the award for "Best Children's Series." Cookie Monster ends up eating the envelope before its announced, and Kermit has to use a flashlight to see who the winner is. The winner ends up being a tie between Sesame Street, The Electric Company, and Zoom.

1977, Primetime

Kermit the Frog and Fozzie Bear present.

• Press release, via Jim Henson Company website

1979, Primetime

Miss Piggy thinks that she and Kermit have been asked to host the show, but he explains that they're just there to read the rules. Piggy is offended: "I did NOT spend six hours with Monsieur Jacques of Encino to read lousy rules!" She pouts while Kermit reads the rules, then refuses to get offstage until she gets a close-up, and eventually karate chops the frog for his remarks before leaving the stage. (transcript)

1982, Daytime

The Sesame Street cast appears performing a tribute to television using letters of the alphabet (mixed with portions of "Sing"). (YouTube)

Appearing are humans Gordon, Susan, Maria, Luis, Bob, David, Olivia, Mr. Hooper and the kids. Muppet characters include Buster the Horse, Telly Monster, Count von Count, Kermit the Frog, Fred the Wonder Horse, Farley, Oscar the Grouch, Herry Monster, Barkley, Clementine, Rusty, Sherlock Hemlock, Biff, Sully and some Anything Muppets. Big Bird turns up at the end, having missed the entire musical number.

1984

Jim Henson appears as himself, presenting the award for "Best performer in a variety or music series" with Paul Williams. Before coming on-stage, Tom Selleck talks about Jim Henson's beginnings and the "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face" clip is shown. Although Jim Henson appears without any of his characters, he does announce the winner, Cloris Leachman, in Kermit's voice.

1989, Primetime

Miss Piggy appears to accept the "Grand Jury Lifetime Achievement Award for Non-Humans," which Kermit corrects swiftly, telling her that they appear to give the "Award for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program." John Lovelady and Allan Trautman are among the nominees for Sid and Marty Krofft's D.C. Follies, while Linda Ronstadt wins the award.

Preceding their onstage appearance, a clip montage of famous puppets is shown. Among the clips are two borrowed from The Muppet Show: One featuring Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy from their appearance and Fozzie Bear's act from episode 424 (his name on-screen being misspelled as "Fozzy Bear").

1994, Daytime

LeVar Burton speaks on behalf of Sesame Street’s 25th anniversary, leading to a montage of clips from the show. Big Bird appears onstage to help Burton present the award for "Outstanding Animated Children's Program."

2003, Daytime

Elmo, Zoe, Grover, Rosita, Big Bird and Wayne Brady perform a medley of songs from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood as a tribute to Fred Rogers.

2004

Kermit and Miss Piggy host the pre-show for the Emmys. Piggy wears a dress by Lela Rose.

The Sesame Street Muppets appeared on stage during the Daytime Emmys ceremony, performing "Sing" with several celebrities (Al Roker, Alex Trebek, Jane Pauley, Paige Davis, Lorenzo Lamas, Meredith Vieira, Emeril Lagasse and Drake Hogestyn), followed by a montage of celebrity appearances, celebrating the show's 35th anniversary.

2005, Daytime

Oscar the Grouch and All My Children actor David Canary, both in trash cans, present the award for Outstanding Performer in a Children's Series. Kevin Clash wins the award.

2006, Daytime

Caroll Spinney is awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Daytime Emmys.

2007, Daytime

Elmo and Tyra Banks presented the winners of the "Children's Emmy Awards."

2009, Daytime

Big Bird, Elmo, Cookie Monster, Gordon, Bob, Maria, Luis, Abby Cadabby, Dorothy, Zoe, Chris, Telly, and Oscar the Grouch performed a medley of songs on the awards broadcast to celebrate the 40th anniversary. Sandra Oh presented the Lifetime Achievement Award. The broadcast opened with Oscar working at the will call window of the theater, denying admission to Gordon and Elmo to the ceremony, but allowing actor Erik Estrada to enter without a ticket. Just as everyone is about to leave the stage, Cookie Monster steals the award and says to the Academy that not only is the award a great honor... "IT DELICIOUS!" He proceeds to start to eat the award, commenting that "it taste better than Latin Grammy!"

2012, Daytime

Oscar the Grouch and Anderson Cooper introduced the show. Oscar, claiming he's only appearing because Elmo was booked, sings "What's So Great About Daytime?"

Kevin Clash was amongst the presenters at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards, held June 17. The "Outstanding Performer" and "Outstanding Children's Animated Program" categories were awarded at the main Daytime Emmy award ceremonies.

2019, Daytime

Joely Fisher with Elmo, Abby, and Alan in 2019.

Elmo, Abby Cadabby, and Alan, along with David Osmond and Joely Fisher, opened the evening with a medley of "Sing" and the "Sesame Street Theme." (Facebook video)

Later in the show, the three appeared alongside hosts Mario Lopez and Sheryl Underwood to discuss the show's 50th anniversary and introduced a clip montage of the series.

rehearsal

2020, Daytime

Cookie Monster presented "Outstanding Culinary Series" from home, 2020.

The ceremonies were held virtually, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Cookie Monster presented the Daytime Emmy for "Outstanding Culinary Series". Big Bird and Cookie Monster appeared as insets during the acceptance speech for "Outstanding Special Class Special." Various clips from past ceremonies were aired, throughout the broadcast. One clip was of the 2004 appearance.

Caroll Spinney was featured in the ceremony's "In Memoriam" segment.

Muppet Mentions

Animal parody.

• The theme to The Muppet Show was excerpted in a montage melody sung by Josh Groban, in the September 21, 2008, broadcast. Groban sang a segment of the theme song with Animal's voice, as an Animal photo puppet replica played the drums. (The dummy used one stick to keep him upright, and two sticks with which an unknown performer hidden behind the drummer made Animal play the drum set.) The next theme was for The X-Files, and the Animal parody was hoisted to the ceiling, with Groban yelling "No! Take me!" pretending it was an alien abduction. (YouTube)

• In the August 29, 2010, broadcast, Jewel sang a song during a segment a montage remembering those who passed away that year. One of the clips shown was "How Do You Do?" featuring Lena Horne with Grover.

• In the 2021 Primetime Emmy Awards broadcast, hosted by Cedric the Entertainer, a variety of celebrities rap. After noting that she "got HBO Max for free," Rita Wilson continues "this rap wouldn't be complete, I gotta give a shout out to Sesame Street. So many characters, I love in fact, that's Bert and Ernie's business, we don't care about that." (YouTube)