Emmy Nominations Announced! Yay Sarah, NPH, Cherry & Ms. Griffin!

If only she'd win... You know a Sarah Silverman acceptance speech would be brutal.

Emmy nominations were announced this morning (it's the 61st year - oy!). 30 Rock and Mad Men got truckloads, no shocker. But some nice surprises... One is that they're allowing more noms in some categories, so now there can be, like, 6 or 7 nominees for stuff like Best Comedy Series and Best Actor in a Comedy Series.

That means, some fresher talent can join the folks who tend to hog all the noms. Like... Sarah Silverman who takes her place among usual suspects Tina Fey and Julia Louis-Dreyfus for Best Actress in a Comedy Series. It's for The Sarah Silverman Program, of course. In which she plays herself (ha!). And which will be on Logo next year. Nice, eh?

Cherry, Neil Patrick Harris and Kathy Griffin get some gay Emmy-nomination love. Suck it!

Gays nominated for prizes include Neil Patrick Harris for Best Supporting Actor on a Comedy Series, How I Met Your Mother (NPH will also be hosting the Emmys); Cherry Jones for Best Supporting Actress for playing the President on 24; Sir Ian McKellen for his King Lear special or movie or mini-series thingy; and of course, non-gay Kathy Griffin (whose tireless inclusion and championing of gays in her show My Life on the D-List is unparalleled) is up for Best Reality series, and one or two others.

Sadly, no Emmy love for RuPaul. Surely, Ru can rank along Heidi and Padma as "Best Reality Show Host," right? Or Drag Race should at least have gotten a nod for Best Lighting! It takes a lotta work to blow Ru's sh*t out with those battleship-worthy searchlights, okaaay?

Who I gotta blow to get an Emmy nom up in heerrrre?

AfterElton's got a little gay overview on the Emmy noms. Or check out the Emmy site for the full, completely exhausting list of way too many categories.

The show airs September 20th on CBS.