Anthony Anderson dove full-force into nostalgia for his Emmys 2024 opening, tracing the instrumental shows of his childhood for the 75th annual broadcast. “Television has shaped the world, and more importantly, it’s shaped me,” he said, walking onto the set of Mister Anderson’s Neighborhood, a spin on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. He emerged in a fur coat and sunglasses, before switching into his tuxedo jacket and shouting out the “small, local, and diverse choir from Compton” that he had enlisted to sing backup.

The 75th Emmy Awards Live Updates

Anderson then cycled through renditions of theme songs from several of his favorite shows, including Good Times, The Facts of Life, and Miami Vice. He had a musical assist onstage from Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker. The trip down memory lane was fitting for an awards show that was postponed from an original September airdate amid the dual writers and actors strikes in 2023.

In his initial remarks, Anderson refrained from poking fun at any of 2024’s Emmy-nominated shows, or his own checkered Emmys history—namely, receiving several nominations as lead comedy actor and producer on ABC’s sitcom Black-ish, only to go home empty-handed during the show’s eight-season run.

Anderson, who has hosted more than 10 iterations of the NAACP Image Awards, told The Hollywood Reporter ahead of Monday’s ceremony that he planned to reference his elusive Emmy. “Well, since I’m 0 for 11 in the win/loss category of the Emmys, I figured why not host the award that I covet the most and is missing from my shelf,” the comedian said. “My monologue will be all 11 speeches I had prepared over the years.”

The 2024 Emmys are airing live on Fox, where Anderson’s new music game show, We Are Family, airs. His 70-year-old mother, Doris, who appears on the series, also popped in during her son’s monologue, warning that she would get people off the stage instead of traditional play-off music. Sure enough, during Jennifer Coolidge’s acceptance speech for supporting actress in a drama series, which she won for her role on The White Lotus, Doris pointed to a poster board featuring  a clock with a red slash through it, chiming in to say, “I love you, baby, but time.”

There was no mention of Jo Koy’s recent rocky Golden Globes monologue, which has revived the debate over awards show hosts and was slyly referenced by Chelsea Handler, Koy’s ex, while she hosted the 2024 Critics Choice Awards. Instead, Anderson’s monologue struck the same jovial tone he expressed when he was announced as Emmys 2024 host last year. “With our industry’s recent challenges behind us, we can get back to what we love—dressing up and honoring ourselves,” he said in a statement to Vanity Fair. “And there’s no better celebratory moment to bring the creative community together than the milestone 75th Emmy Awards. When Fox asked me to host this historic telecast, I was over the moon that Taylor Swift was unavailable, and now I can’t wait to be part of the biggest night in television.”