Think Emmy Categories Are Confusing Now? Here’s How Two TV Academy Experiments in the ’60s and ’70s Went ‘Super’ Awry

variety.com:

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large At 98, Dick Van Dyke is nearly a quarter century older than the Emmys (which clock in at 76 this year).

That’s why it’s all the more astounding that he’s still a force when it comes to TV’s biggest prize. Not only did he score a Daytime Emmy this year, breaking records as that honor’s oldest winner ever, but he was the subject of the current Emmy-nominated CBS special “Dick Van Dyke 98 Years of Magic.” Van Dyke, who last won a Primetime Emmy in 1977 (for “Van Dyke and Company”), isn’t up for one of the four nominations that “98 Years of Magic” received — including outstanding pre-recorded variety special— though his star power sure didn’t hurt.

Van Dyke has won four Emmys overall, but one of them comes with an interesting asterisk. As an armchair quarterback, I know I’m always pontificating on ways the Television Academy could improve the Emmy categories or telecast.

But sometimes, radical change isn’t such a good idea. I’m referring to what happened in 1965, when then-leader Rod Serling pushed the idea to replace the traditional categories with just four major ones: “program achievements in entertainment,” which honored four shows among 15 nominees; as well as three “individual achievement” categories with multiple awards for actors and performers, directors and writers.