Hollywood’s leading animation showrunners got together on Monday to send an angry letter to the TV Academy calling for equal treatment with live-action scribes.

“Simpsons” producer Al Jean penned the screed to ATAS, castigating it for allowing “Community” to be eligible “once again” for consideration in the comedy series, writing, animated program, and short-form animated program categories. Although the show is not animated, it had one cartoon episode last year and has an animated web series. Animated shows, however, don’t get cross-genre liberties.

“I don’t expect them to change the rules this year, but I hope that next year everyone would be able to do what Community did this year,” Jean told Deadline. (The original letter, signed by Jean and 51 others, including Matt Groening, James L Brooks and Seth MacFarlane, is below.)

Jean told Variety, “What they are doing with ‘Community’ is what we said they should do all along” for animated series. “Why not?” he asked. “If a writer of an animated program wants to submit for a writing Emmy, great. And if it’s not good enough, it won’t win.”

“Family Guy,” Variety notes, has an episode in the comedy writing category (written by Steve Callaghan) – but in doing so, forced its own removal from the top animation program race. “Community,” on the other hand, remains in the comedy series race despite its animation presence.

In response, the Academy said:  “It is a general rule of the Emmy competition that producers, writers and directors enter separately in their own program or individual achievement categories, e.g., comedy series writers enter the Writing for a Comedy Series category, drama series directors enter the Directing for a Drama Series category, etc.

“Eligibility in animation programming is an exception to this general rule, because the animation producers, writers and directors enter the Animated Program category together as a team.  There is no separate category for the individual achievements of animation writing and directing.   (However, if an animated series opts to enter in Comedy Series rather than Animated Program category, then the individual achievement categories are open to them, e.g., writers can enter Writing for a Comedy Series category.)

 ”‘Community’ is a Comedy Series that for the last two years has included an animated “special episode.”  The competition includes a rule that a special episode can enter as a stand-alone special, “if it involved a significant and substantive format change throughout e.g. from whole-episode live action to whole-episode animation.”   The “Community” producers followed that rule when they entered the producer-writer-director team for the animated episode in the Animation category and the regular, live-action episodes in the Comedy Series program and Comedy Series individual achievement categories.

Here’s the original letter to ATAS:

To Whom It May Concern:

Television Academy

We the undersigned animation showrunners and writers desire to address what we have regarded as a pernicious and unfair ruling by the Academy for the past 20 years, which we believe now, more than ever, should be redressed.

We have been told that animated program writers could not also submit their work for writing Emmys, for reasons we never understood, but supposedly pertaining to the purity of the branches.

This is why no one was more startled than we when last year “Community” was able to submit for comedy series, writing, and animated program, in the face of everything we had been told for two decades.  We were told that for some reason, a one-time waiver was granted.

Imagine our surprise when this year we see “Community” once again eligible for comedy series, writing, animated program, and short-form animated program.  This letter is in no way intended to be a slight on the terrific show “Community” but a request from us to enjoy the very same rights they now do.  Clearly the Academy’s ban on submitting in multiple categories is being enforced in an arbitrary and unfair manner.  We therefore request that we also be able to submit our programs for both animation and comedy series as well as in the writing category.

Respectfully,

Richard Appel
Mike Barker
Kit Boss
James L. Brooks
Stewart Burns
Steve Callaghan
Brett Cawley
Joe Chandler
David X. Cohen
Joel Cohen
Jim Dautrieve
John Frink
Tom Gammill
Valentina Garza
Stephanie Gillis
David A. Goodman
Dan Greaney
Matt Groening
Michael Henry
Mark Hentemann
Eric Horsted
Al Jean
Artie Johann
Stephen Kane
Ken Keeler
Brian Kelley
Jon Kern
Rob LaZebnik
Tim Long
Robert Maitia
Seth MacFarlane
Steve Marmel
Ian Maxtone-Graham
Patrick Meighan
Wendy Molyneux
Bill Odenkirk
Carolyn Omine
Don Payne
Michael Price
Eric Rogers
Michael Rowe
Jon Schroeder
Brian Scully
Mike Scully
Matt Selman
Rick Singer
Patric M. Verrone
Ali Waller
Josh Weinstein
Matt Weitzman
Jeff Westbrook
Marc Wilmore

http://www.deadline.com/2012/06/simpsons%E2%80%99-al-jean-other-animation-producers-challenge-%E2%80%9Cunfair%E2%80%9D-community-emmy-submission/

http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/06/18/community-animated-protest/

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118055669?refCatId=14