Promo Hunters 21: And the Award Goes to…

It’s time to walk down the red carpet in your finest attire! It’s award season, a time to celebrate the best of the best from the year prior from the film and television industry to music. While everyone is focused on the winner, we’re more interested in the piece of hardware they take home. In this star-studded edition of Promo Hunters, we’re covering the most iconic, prestigious award shows and the history behind the statuettes. From the Oscars to the Moon Person, let’s see who takes home tonight’s big prize.

The Golden Globes Awards

Let’s start with the award show that ushers in the upcoming season. The Golden Globe Awards are an annual awards ceremony honoring excellent achievements in both film and television. The ceremony is currently presented by the Golden Globes Foundation, an organization representing international journalists who report on the American entertainment industry. The iconic statuette has gone through numerous redesigns since the award’s inception in 1944 excluding the iconic Golden Globe with wrapped filmstrip atop the award. Today’s 24-carat gold-plated award was designed by R/GA and is a huge departure from previous interactions, swapping the marble rectangular bottom for a cylindrical base. The award also features an NFC chip, showcasing information such as the winner’s name, the category, and the year they won. As of today, Barbra Streisand holds the record for the most Golden Globes earned with ten awards followed by Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep with nine awards each. 

The GRAMMY Awards

From film and television to the music industry, the GRAMMY Awards are presented by the Recording Academy to recognize the biggest achievements in the music industry. The GRAMMYs can trace their origins back to the Hollywood Walk of Fame project. Recording executives on the Walk of Fame committee in the ‘50s compiled a list of people who might qualify for a star, but feared people in their industry wouldn’t earn one. To correct this, they created an award ceremony similar to the Emmys and Oscars (more on that later). After it was decided to hold an award show, the only thing left to decide was what to call the ceremony. The name was chosen after a mail-in contest urging people to come up with a name. “GRAMMY” was chosen to honor Emile Berliner's invention, the gramophone. The gold-plated trophy was designed by Billings Artwork featuring a gilded gramophone. Trophies handed out during the ceremony are “stunt” trophies and winners have to wait weeks after the ceremony to receive their engraved statuette. As of today, Beyonce holds the record with the most nominations and wins at the GRAMMYs with 99 nominations and 32 wins. 

The Academy Awards

“And the Oscar goes to…” The Academy Awards is the glitziest, most coveted award in the American film industry. Your favorite award show’s favorite award show, the Oscars is presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognizing the excellence in cinema the year prior. The first Academy Awards ceremony was held at a private at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in 1929. The ceremony was 15 minutes, a huge contrast to the more than three-hour telecast today. The gold-plated bronze Oscar statuette depicts an Art Decon knight standing on a reel of film gripping a crusader’s sword. As of 2010, winners can now get their awards engraved with their names during the Oscar’s afterparty. The origin of the trophy’s nickname is unclear, as numerous people take credit for the “Oscar” moniker. According to the Oscar’s website, the Academy didn’t adopt the nickname until 1939, however, the first use of the nickname in print dates back to 1934 when Sidney Skolsky used the word in a piece referring to Katharine Hepburn’s first Best Actress win. As of today, 1959’s Ben-Hur, 1997’s Titanic, and 2003’s Lord of the Ring: The Return of the King hold the record for most Oscars won by a single with 11 awards.

Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Award

From gold-plated awards to orange blimps, the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Award honors the year’s biggest celebrities, movies, music, TV shows, sports, and more voted by the children viewers of Nickelodeon. The first Kids’ Choice Awards, also known as The Big Ballot in 1987, was created to honor kids’ opinions about movies and TV. Ballots were cast by mail and winners would record a “thank you” message that was shown during the program. Today’s KCAs are more elaborate with live performances, guest stars, and tons, and we mean TONS, of slime. Winners would receive the iconic hollow orange blimp that doubles as a kaleidoscope with Nickelodeon’s logo on the side. Animated classic Spongebob Squarepants holds the record with the most KCA wins with 21 blimps to its name.

MTV Video Music Awards

Finally, let’s discuss one of my personal favorite award shows and the birthplace of some of the most memorable pop culture moments in history: the MTV Video Music Awards. The ceremony is presented by MTV to honor the best in music videos and as an alternative to the GRAMMY Awards in the music video category. By the 2000s, if you were a chart-topping, larger-than-life artist, you were at the VMAs. The evening’s big award, the Moon Person, was designed by Manhattan Design, which also created the MTV logo. The award depicts an astronaut on the moon holding the MTV flag. The award is a callback to the channel’s well-known station ID of an astronaut from the Apollo 11 mission planting the MTV flag on the moon. To date, megastar Taylor Swift takes the crown for having the most moon people with 30 VMAs to her name.