It's an odd television awards show that highlights one of the Web's hottest series. On Sunday, television's best and brightest gathered for the 2009 Emmys. The event, hosted by Neil Patrick Harris, offered few surprises in terms of awards – 30 Rock and Mad Men took home the most coveted trophies for a second year in a row. Yet, for all its lack of suspense, the awards show managed to serve up a number of memorable moments, perhaps most notable being the uninvited appearance from the Web's Dr. Horrible, as played by host Neil Patrick Harris.
Dr. Horrible Hijacks the 2009 Emmys
In his appearance, Dr. Horrible emphatically declares that "television is dead" and that "the future of home entertainment is the Internet." Tough words for television audiences, to be sure. The "hijacking" has generated over 100,000 views to date. And while this is certainly an impressive number, especially for a web-based character in a television awards show, there were a few other Emmy moments that performed better.
At the top of the list is the very pregnant Heidi Klum, who was able to steal the show from the red carpet with nearly 300,000 views. Neil Patrick Harris' opening number, a musical plea for television audiences not to put down the remote or jump online (and watch Dr. Horrible), comes in second with 250,000 views. And, for whatever reason, Jimmy Fallon took a nose dive on stage during his Kanye impression, which has swept up 170,000 views. (The digitally rendered "Oh my back!" is priceless.)
Dr. Horrible's act rounds out the top four, generating more views than all of the other red carpet interviews, sketches, and acceptance speeches, which is quite a feat for a webisode.
This increased exposure for Dr. Horrible has driven the webisode's daily view count up by 200%. Last month, it landed eighth place in The Visible Measures / Mashable Top Webisodes Chart. With this increase in visibility, as well as a new asset – Dr. Horrible hasn't had a new show in over a year – it will be interesting to see how it performs on next month's Chart.
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The data used in this post was collected from our Viral Reach Database, a constantly growing video repository of analytic data on 100+ million Internet videos from 150+ video-sharing destinations.