Sassy TV Judges Finally Acknowledged By The Daytime Emmys
Until now, court shows went mostly unheralded by the TV producing establishment, despite their appellates delighting millions via the meting out of their own brand of sassy justice ladled with a generous helping of snappy catchphrases. But even in the realm of after-school, syndie-strip law, rights can be wronged, as organizers of the Daytime Emmys have just announced that court shows will finally be getting their own category:
[W]ith the number of gavel skeins in double digits, the National Academy of TV Arts & Sciences has finally come to the realization that Judges Judy, Mathis, Alex, Hatchett and their ilk aren't going anywhere. [...]
"For a long time, people didn't really know what to do with courtshows," says Michael Rourke, who exec produces "Judge David Young" and "Judge Maria Lopez" for Sony Pictures TV.
"It wasn't really a talkshow or a reality show or a soap opera," he says. "It had elements of all of those things. The genre was an orphan. It's great they're acknowledging it as its own category."
The instant frontrunner is the deeply tanned, trapjawed grandma widely credited with the current genre glut, Judge Judy, who can turn a deadbeat, welfare-collecting ex-boyfriend who refuses to return a borrowed lawnmower into a pile a smoking ash with one lasery stare and the utterance of copyrighted dictum, "Don't rape my chicken and tell me you're taking it for a walk!" (We're already looking forward to her moving acceptance speech—"Bup bup bup! I'm TALKING here. Pipe down, Maestro!") Still, don't rule out darkhorse candidate Judge David "Justice with a Snap" Young, who'll appeal to the Academy's slightly younger, Sweeney Todd-quoting demographic.
