Prodigy’ Wins Emmy For Production Design; LeVar Burton Receives Lifetime Achievement Award – TrekMovie.com

admin2021January 8, 2023

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.