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Everybody Loves Raymond's supporting crew and Jon Stewart's Daily Show news team took top honors at Sunday night's 57th annual Emmy Awards.
Brad Garrett won the first prize of the evening, for supporting actor in a comedy series – and less than an hour later, his TV mother Doris Roberts also won the Emmy, as best supporting actress.
"This is the icing on the cake," she told the crowd. "Nine wonderful years on Everybody Loves Raymond." She thanked the fans and "everybody who watched, and everybody who didn't watch. I just want to thank everybody."
She also brought her grandchildren up to the stage and introduced them, saying: "This is what really made it work."
Roberts's win preceded David Letterman's heartfelt tribute to the king of late night, Johnny Carson, who died in January. On TV's biggest night, Letterman called Carson "the biggest star in television." Summing up Carson's style, Letterman said, simply, "All so easy, so effortless."
On the awards front: Jon Stewart and his team from Comedy Central's The Daily Show won Emmys for comedy writing and for best variety, music or comedy series.
Said Stewart, clutching his gold trophy: "When I first said that I wanted to put together a late-night comedy team that would only be 80 percent Ivy League-educated Jews, people said I was crazy. 'You need 90 percent.' (they said). Well, we proved them wrong."
In the supporting actress race, Blythe Danner won her first-ever Emmy for her role in the dramatic series Huff, on Showtime. "I think my (late) husband, Bruce Paltrow, is up there stirring things up for me." She also thanked her children, who include daughter Gwyneth Paltrow – calling them "my brilliant inspiration."
For the third year running, The Amazing Race beat out such heavy contenders as The Apprentice and Survivor to win best reality-competition program.
Hugh Jackman, sporting Wolverine-like facial hair, won for outstanding individual performance in a variety or music program for hosting last June's Tony Awards. Aware of the big awards-show pitfall, he said he knew that the music to cut off his speech would start before he finished all his acknowledgments. And it did – though he did manage to squeeze in thanks to his wife, Deb.
Two veteran actors won in the supporting categories for dramatic TV movies. Jane Alexander won the second Emmy of her career, this time for her role as Sarah Roosevelt (mother of FDR) in HBO's Warms Springs. Paul Newman won for Empire Falls, also on HBO.
