The animated series Star Trek: Prodigy is being honored for its first season. The show aimed at younger audiences series picked up an Emmy at the first annual Children’s & Family Emmy Awards, but also lost out on a big award. At the Sunday event, Star Trek: The Next Generation veteran LeVar Burton was awarded a lifetime achievement award.
Prodigy picks up first Emmy
Star Trek: Prodigy went into the night nominated for Outstanding Animated Series, but the award went to City of Ghosts. Still, it was a rare major category nomination for Star Trek at the Emmys. Co-executive producer Aaron Waltke, who was at the event, said on Twitter what an honor it was to be considered among the other nominees and congratulated the winner.
A huge honor to be nominated with so many other great shows — huge congrats to @kikutowne and City of Ghosts! And congrats to @Talexiart for winning “Outanding Production Design” for #StarTrekProdigy!
We’e so grateful to be recognized. As Janeway says, “We’ve only just begun.” pic.twitter.com/j21019BHWY
— Aaron J. Waltke (@GoodAaron) December 12, 2022
The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences also handed out seven special jury awards for Individual Achievement in Animation. These awards were picked by a panel of experts evaluating original work from the disciplines of Background, Character Animation, Character Design, Color, Production Design and Storyboard. Alessandro Taini won for his work as a production designer on Star Trek: Prodigy. He was at the event on Sunday to accept the award and thanked Paramount along with his artists as well as the writers and producers and gave a special shoutout to director Ben Hibon. He dedicated the award to his late mother, who he said was (like the Emmy) “an angel.”
Allessandro Taini picking up his Emmy for Prodigy on Sunday night
LeVar Burton honored
TNG vet LeVar Burton was honored by the Children’s & Family Emmy Awards with the its first Lifetime Achievement Award. Burton was being recognized for his work on Reading Rainbow, which “taught multiple generations of children about the joys of reading.” The PBS series promoting reading for kids ran for 21 seasons from 1983 to 2006, all hosted by Burton who was also an executive producer. Throughout his career, Burton has picked up 13 Emmy Awards; other accolades include a Grammy and a Peabody Award. On Sunday, the special Emmy was presented to Burton by Laurence Fishburne, who introduced a pre-recorded intro video that included a tribute from his TNG costar Whoopi Goldberg and ended with a message from his former captain, Sir Patrick Stewart.
Patrick Stewart congratulates LeVar Burton
Picking up the award, Burton said his life story leading to this award was something achievable “only in America.” In addition to thanking his Reading Rainbow colleagues and his family, Burton also mentioned how he was inspired by three great creators: Roots author Alex Haley, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, and children’s television icon Fred Rogers.
LeVar Burton picks up a lifetime achievement award
Badgey!
The event was hosted by Jack McBrayer, who voices Badgey the evil holodeck character on Star Trek: Lower Decks.
Jack McBrayer hosting the Children and Family Emmys
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I truly adore Levar – what a class act. I also really love that his TNG crew truly embodies the best spirit of Trek, a legacy of family that continues to this day. Levar, Whoopi, Patrick – they are treasures <3 and congratulations Prodigy!
Well said.
Editor: It’s Fred Rogers, not Rodgers. Thanks! (This also applies to Steve Rogers / Cap)
Congrats to Prodigy — far and above the greatest star trek animated series ever. And congrats to LeVar Burton — well-deserved,
PS: And Lower Decks, for the third year in a row, won the Jack Squat Award. Lol
Maybe Badgey can teach them a lesson.
If Lower Decks actually brought something new to the table, instead of trading almost exclusively on nostalgia and call-backs to previous Trek, they might be recognised a bit more with awards like these.
Yep!
Lower Decks competes in the Primetime Emmys and has been nominated previously for sound. Season 3 qualifies for next year’s Emmys actually. It also just was nominated for a Critics Choice Award and was previously nominated for a Hugo, a Saturn and a number of other awards.
Honestly I’m not sure I see the differentiation. I get LD and Prodigy compete in different demographics, but neither “air” on TV, to say nothing of Primetime. “Primetime” really doesn’t even mean anything anymore. IMHO it’s becoming a meaningless distinction.
Sure, sure–but it didn’t actually win anything. And there’s a pretty significant difference between getting nominated for sound mixing and getting nominated for best series. Star Trek has always excelled in technical categories.
The “greatest Trek animated series ever” is obviously subjective. I love Prodigy, but the original Animated Series will always be the greatest for me. It set the template for everything that follows, as TOS did for all of the subsequent live action series.
Considering the flood of programming content out there, that Lower Decks gets nominated, regularly, but doesn’t win suggests that it’s still a solid production. My humble opinion, anyway.
Well deserved, congrats to the Prodigy Team!
Congratulations, ALL!
Jeopardy really missed out. Their loss.
Absolutely!
Truly
SO TRUE! Mayim Bialik has proven to be kind of polarizing with audiences and frankly Ken Jennings doesn’t really have the “wow” factor to carry the show.
Well deserved for all parties!! Congratulations!!
Goooo Prodigy! Well deserved and a big reason it’s become my favorite show in modern Star Trek.
Oh and I had no idea Jack McBrayer voiced Badgey until now lol. How did I miss that all this time???
It really surprises me how much I love this show considering I was never ever a Janeway fan.
Bravo to all! LeVar in Reading Rainbow is one of the first “friends” on television I had as a child, only to grow to love him more when I (soon after) started watching TNG. Well deserved!
Same to be said about Prodigy: it’s a beautiful show paving new paths for our newest generation of Trek fans! Congratulations!