Since great television comedy always begins with the script, this series of posts considers the individual episodes that have claimed the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series over the years.

People in showbiz absolutely adore movies and television shows that savage their own industry. The meaner, the better. In “The Promotion,” the first episode of The Studio, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg channel a couple decades of experience into a story that’s just mean enough, even as it has a slightly loving view of the foibles of the executives who shepherd movies to the screen.

The script smoothly and efficiently does everything a pilot script is supposed to do: It sets the program’s overarching story into motion, it lays out the main characters, it tosses in plenty of celebrity cameos that will be the recurring lifeblood of the series, and, maybe most critically, it establishes the caustic, anxiety-infused tone that will follow. In the opening minutes of the show, Matt Remick (Seth Rogen) learns he’s getting his dream job. He is tapped to run venerable Continental Studios. Matt was always sure he’d take such an opportunity to usher in a new age of artistically bold American cinema, more in line with the storied nineteen-seventies than the Marvel-marauded now. The inevitable string of compromises to come begins right away. Essentially as a condition of employment, Matt agrees that his first major project will be a Kool-Aid movie.

The use of Kool-Aid as the IP that inaugurates Matt’s devil-dealing is truly inspired. It’s absolutely absurd, and, oh yeah, entirely plausible. That’s indicative of the sly smarts that run through the script. And there’s little doubt that knowing quality was going to win over Emmy voters. On a night when The Studio absolutely cleaned up —claiming a Best Actor trophy for Rogen and the Outstanding Comedy Series award, among others — Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series was arguably one of its most predictable wins.

Other posts in this series can be found at the “Golden Words” tag.