Seth MacFarlane and nonagenarians Norman Lear and Sir David Attenborough were among the winners Saturday evening as the two-day Creative Arts Emmy Awards honoring mainly technical aspects of prime-time television began at the Microsoft Theater.
MacFarlane won his third outstanding character voice-over performance Emmy for his work on the Fox animated comedy “Family Guy.”
MacFarlane also won in the category in 2016 and 2017 and received an Emmy in 2000 for outstanding voice-over performance, a juried award where there would be multiple or no recipients in one year.
The category received its current title in 2014 when the Emmy for outstanding narrator was created. Previously, actors supplying voices for animated programming competed with narrators of live-action programming.
MacFarlane has 10 nominations for his voice-over work, nine for “Family Guy” and one for “American Dad.”
This is the sixth consecutive year a voice-over performer from a Fox series has won in the category and fourth consecutive year one from “Family Guy” has won. Alex Borstein won last year.
Borstein was also among this year’s nominees, as was another past winner, Hank Azaria, who has won four Emmys for providing voices on the Fox animated comedy “The Simpsons.”
The 97-year-old Lear won as an executive producer of ABC’s re-creation of original episodes of two of his 1970s hit CBS comedies, “Live in Front of a Studio Audience: Norman Lear’s `All in the Family’ and `The Jeffersons,”’ which won for outstanding live variety special.
Attenborough, 93, won two Emmys Saturday. He received his second consecutive Emmy for best narrator, winning for his work on the Netflix nature documentary “Our Planet,” and for writing its episode titled “Jungles.”
The field for best narrator also included Liv Schreiber, who has been nominated in the category four times, and Anthony Mendez, a three-time nominee. Neither has won. Schreiber also has four acting nominations, but never won.
Attenborough won in 2018 for narrating the nature documentary “Blue Planet II,” which aired in the U.S. on the cable network BBC America.
RuPaul won for host of a reality or competition program for the fourth consecutive year.
The host of VH1’s “RuPaul’s Drag Race” won in a field that also consisted of Ellen DeGeneres (“Ellen’s Game Of Games”), Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman (“Making It”), James Corden (“The World’s Best”) and Marie Kondo (“Tidying Up With Marie Kondo”).
Corden won two Emmys as a producer Saturday, for “Carpool Karaoke: The Series,” the winner for outstanding short form variety series, and outstanding pre-recorded variety special, “Carpool Karaoke: When Corden Met McCartney Live From Liverpool.”
The National Geographic biographical documentary “Free Solo” on Sacramento-raised rock climber Alex Honnold was the night’s top winner with seven Emmys, including for outstanding directing for a documentary/nonfiction program and outstanding cinematography for a nonfiction program.
The Netflix adult animated science fiction anthology series “Love, Death & Robots” was second with five Emmys, including four in the juried category, outstanding individual achievement in animation.
The Netflix makeover series “Queer Eye,” won four awards, including its second consecutive Emmy for outstanding structured reality series.
Netflix was the top winner among networks and streaming services with 15. National Geographic was second with eight, followed by CNN and NBC with five each and Fox, HBO and YouTube with four each.
Categories primarily related to reality, variety, animation and documentary programming were presented Saturday.
Sunday’s awards include those for scripted programming, mainly in obscure technical categories, such as picture editing, costuming, hairstyling, makeup and sound, but also for guest acting.
The Creative Arts Emmy Awards honor programming that initially aired between 6 p.m. and 2 a.m. from June 1, 2018, to May 31, 2019.
Awards in the top 27 categories in comedy, drama, competition, limited and variety sketch and talk series will be presented at the 71st Primetime Emmy Awards on Sept. 22.