Perhaps the most difficult task for an awards producer is deciding when to let a winner play off the stage. On Sunday night, 76^and Emmys, “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” had just won another award — the second in a row for a scripted variety series — and the host’s speech was starting to get longer and longer.

A frustrated Oliver had already messed up his son Hudson’s name (accidentally calling him “husband”) and then started talking about his dog. For the Jesse Collins Entertainment team, it felt like a good time to wrap things up. So they kicked the playoff music into high gear.

And then, as the orchestral music grew louder, Oliver revealed the worst: the dog had just died.

“I was like, ‘Oh, turn the music off!'” executive producer Jesse Collins laughs about that unexpected moment. “You’re just trying to make a phone call. And then John Oliver’s dog shows up!”

Jesse Collins Entertainment president Dionne Harmon said, “He was talking about the dog, and we were like… he’s dead? No! Take back the music, give the dead dog some respect!”

Collins said Oliver was a good sport about the moment. “It was great TV!” he added.

Collins, Harmon and Jeannae Rouzan-Clay, Jesse Collins Entertainment’s senior VP of specials, spoke with Variety on Sunday directly after the 76^and Emmys are set to air to reveal some behind-the-scenes details of this year’s show.Variety also spoke with ABC and Disney executives on Sunday night to gain some insight into certain aspects of the show.)

It was the Jesse Collins Entertainment team’s second Emmy of the year, following a reunion-heavy affair in January. This time around, the goal was to build on the success of that event (which was postponed from September 2023 due to the Hollywood strikes) but put its own spin on it, with segments paying tribute to TV moms, villains, doctors, cops and more, as well as cast reunions for “Happy Days” and “The West Wing.”

All told, this year’s show was about 10 minutes late, which isn’t bad for a live event. According to Collins, Harmon and Rouzan-Clay, no major elements were cut for the time. And there was no specific moment that made the show a little late.

“It was like, instead of saving 20 seconds here or 10 seconds there, everything added 10 seconds, added 10 seconds,” Collins said. “Because you had great moments, you had great comedy that spread out. Ultimately, we were happy with it.”

Here are some more facts and answers to some of your burning questions about this year’s show.

>> Hosts Eugene and Dan Levy were responsible for a lot of the creativity when it came to their interactions. That included choosing a traditional, joke-heavy stage opening, rather than a recorded piece or production number.

“It was never about a big song and dance number,” Collins said. “It was about bringing out the comedy, connecting with the audience and showing their relationship.”

Rouzan-Clay said: “We were setting up what you would see the rest of the night.” Harmon added: “You can’t fake that. Their relationship was the most important thing about them hosting. So we wanted to really set that up from the beginning.”

>> Why was comedian Jeremy Allen White’s comment about “Jesus Christ” bleeped out? That’s not the producers’ responsibility, who didn’t even know it had happened. Give the credit to an overzealous network censor — one completely separate from the production team and even the network’s special executives.

“We don’t have control of the button and we don’t hear it,” Harmon noted. “We have a delay, so we see what’s happening. We don’t have a feed to the actual show. We don’t have the button.”

>> Yes, that unusual moment when Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Taylor Zakhar Perez were spotted in a backstage bar discussing Johnnie Walker Blue Label scotch was a paid product integration.

“Oh my,” Collins chuckled. “Interesting television! It was an integration opportunity with ABC and the Academy and Johnnie Walker.”

Moss-Bachrach is a paid spokesperson for the brand, so it made sense for him to join. “He’s shooting a big movie and he flew in especially for us,” Rouzan-Clay said.

Said Harmon: “It was just about doing something in a creative way. I mean, a bar at an event like this, a fancy drink like it works, it certainly wasn’t a broom. It fit. Fancy drink for a fancy night. We’ve had some interesting integrations in our career!”

Collins joked, “I was tempted to have a few during the show.”

>> Collins had heard Jelly Roll’s song “I Am Not Okay” before it came out, and he knew it would be perfect for the In Memoriam segment.

“I thought it was a very brave performance,” Collins said. “He was phenomenal. It was a different kind of artist to be on that show. And he was wearing a blazer! That’s probably the first time in his entire life that he’s ever worn a blazer. And no hat. He was very specific about not wearing a hat.”

Harmon noted that when Jelly Roll performs the song on tour, “people bring posters, and they have names and pictures of loved ones who have passed away. It’s kind of a highlight of his show.

>> Jimmy Kimmel’s tribute to Bob Newhart at the end of In Memoriam was placed there when the producers realized that Jelly Roll would also open his segment with a speech.

“It seemed awkward to have Jimmy talk and then go into Jelly,” Collins said. “Bob Newhart was such an iconic person to end up with, so it made sense for Jimmy to come out.”

>> Many of the Levys’ bits were based on reality — including Eugene’s desire not to do an audience segment. “That was real,” Collins said of Eugene Levy’s preference to not do anything in the audience. Rouzan-Clay added, “That setup where Dan’s in the audience and Eugene’s far away, that was so them and so iconic.”

>> Some of the tribute set pieces were built, while others relied on screenshots — but it was often hard to tell the difference at home. And that was intentional.

“A lot of it is timing,” Harmon said. “For example, do we have time to bring an entire car onto the stage? Where we had time, we could really build out those moments, and where we had to move faster, we leaned more on the screen content. That screen was incredible. The ‘SNL’ steps, I swear I thought I could walk away from that. I was shocked that it was a screen.”

>> The hardest piece to find for the sets? The ’50s-style jukebox for the “Happy Days” reunion between Ron Howard and Henry Winkler. (Winkler’s Fonz famously hit the jukebox to get it to play, something he did again Sunday at the Emmys.) “We finally found it at a prop store,” Collins said.

>> The plan was always to have the “Happy Days” tribute just Howard and Winkler, which is why you didn’t see any other stars from the show, like Donny Most (Ralph) or Anson Williams (Potsie). “No, it was always those two from the beginning. Because the idea was to have the two of them and not have it be a big reunion,” Collins said. “We love all those guys. I think we saved the big cast reunion for ‘The West Wing.’

>> Speaking of “The West Wing,” that might have been the worst-kept secret of the night. Producers were keeping that show’s reunion a secret — but then ABC announced in a press release that the Emmy hosts were naming all of the show’s cast, including Martin Sheen, Allison Janney, Dulé Hill, Janel Moloney and Richard Schiff. It wasn’t hard to imagine what was going to happen.

“They called out all the names!” said Collins.

Harmon confirmed that the entire cast was invited, but that not everyone was able to attend due to availability issues (which prevented other former members, such as Rob Lowe, from appearing on stage).

>> Sorry, “Friends” fans, there was never a plan to bring that cast back to the stage. (And with Matthew Perry’s death, that was even more unlikely.)

“Honestly, when we were talking about the shows, we knew we weren’t going to do a lot of them,” Collins said of doing more reunions in September. “While a ‘Friends’ reunion would have been great, we just didn’t go down that route.”

>> If you noticed that the podium mic wasn’t always available in time for the presenters, that’s because there was indeed a technical glitch. “We had issues with the pop-up mic,” Collins said. “Just mechanical glitches, and they were able to fix it.”

>> That moment at the end, when Catherine O’Hara tore open the envelope announcing the winner of best comedy series, sent ABC executives into a frenzy. Insiders said the Alphabet suits knew nothing about the O’Hara joke — and had a serious moment of panic, remembering the infamous Oscars envelope gaffe. Thankfully, the winner was announced — but with “Hacks” pulling off a surprise win over “The Bear,” at least one insider noted that Emmy truthers had new fodder.