The room was hungry for snark, and Eugene Levy's joke about not making a joke about The Bear hit better than any other punchline of the night.
The orchestra level was booked solid, but guests kept drifting off to the lobby bar, where they were left to spend nearly $20 for tepid cans of beer and wonder what was happening onstage.
Disney CEO Bob Iger arrived on the carpet with potential successor Dana Walden and her partner Alan Bergman, and they were together again at the Disney afterparty.
Guests were subjected to a marathon of TV theme songs during commercial breaks, and onstage gatherings of The West Wing and Happy Days castmembers got little enthusiasm from the crowd.
RuPaul's Drag Race season 16 winner Nymphia Wind wore a full-body, face-covering neon yellow bodysuit, but struggled to breathe under the mask.
Youssef was out in the lobby shortly before his category was called, but was let back in just in time. He was seen enthusiastically glad-handing guests in the aisles and doling out hugs to winners, including Chris Storer.
Larry David was the lone comedy actor nominee not present in the audience when his category was called, despite being on the circuit this weekend. David was seen hanging out at the WME pre-Emmy party just 48 hours before.
Comedy actress winner Jean Smart received the night's first standing ovation, but the audience was otherwise stingy with the seat-rising until the last hour.