Fox’s “The Simpsons” and NBC’s “Law & Order” franchise scored three nominations apiece Monday among television and radio categories of the 56th annual Writers Guild of America Awards, while “Malcolm in the Middle” had a strong showing with two nominations.
Matt Groening’s long-running cartoon series helped Fox secure five of the six nominations for animation writing, while two “Law & Order” series helped NBC dominate episodic drama with four of the six nominations. PBS programs dominated the list of documentary nominations.
Winners will be announced Feb. 21 as the WGA West holds its ceremonies at the Century Plaza Hotel in Century City and the WGA East hosts its honors at the Pierre Hotel in New York.
In the TV drama category, NBC’s “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” was nominated for two episodes, “Abomination” and “Loss,” both by Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters. Michael Chernuchin was nominated for the “Bounty” episode of NBC’s “Law & Order.” Alexa Junge and Lauren Schmidt were nominated for the “Disaster Relief” episode of NBC’s “The West Wing.” Josh Schwartz for the pilot episode of Fox’s “The O.C.” Evan Katz was nominated for the “7:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m.” episode of Fox’s “24.”
Fox’s “Malcolm in the Middle” got two nominations for episodic comedy: “Day Care,” written by Gary Murphy and Neil Thompson, and “Malcolm Films Reese,” by Dan Kopelman. Bob Daily was nominated for the “No Sex, Please, We’re Skittish” episode of NBC’s “Frasier,” and Jenny Bicks for the “A Woman’s Right to Shoes” episode of HBO’s “Sex and the City.”
Nominees for original longform TV were Larry Gelbart for HBO’s “And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself,” Leslie Bohem for the “Beyond the Sky” and “Jacob and Jesse” episodes of USA’s “Taken,” Peter Pruce and Craig Warner for TNT’s “Caesar” and Jeff Stockwell for TNT’s “Wilder Days.”
In adapted longform television, Jane Anderson was nominated for HBO’s “Normal,” Anne Meredith for Showtime’s “Out of the Ashes,” Stanley Weiser for USA’s “Rudy: The Rudy Giuliani Story” and Matthew McDuffie and Matthew Tabak for USA’s “The Stranger Beside Me.”
In animation writing, “The Simpsons” garnered three nominations: Matt Selman for “The Dad Who Knew Too Little,” J. Stewart Burns for “Moe Baby Blues” and Michael Price for “My Mother the Carjacker.” Also nominated in that category were Tony Gama-Lobo and Rebecca May for the “Reborn to be Wild” episode of Fox’s “King of the Hill,” Steven Banks for the “Rescue Jet Fusion” episode of Nickelodeon’s “The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius” and Patric Verrone for “The Sting” episode of Fox’s “Futurama.”
For comedy/variety awards and other specials, George Stevens Jr., Sara Lukinson and David Leaf were nominated for CBS’ “The Kennedy Center Honors.” Hal Kanter, Rita Cash and Buz Kohan were nominated for “The 75th Annual Academy Awards,” broadcast on ABC.