Emmys to Give Syd Cassyd Award to Producer Spike Jones Jr.

Spike Jones, Jr. produced the last 20 Creative Arts Emmy Awards shows, but this year he will move from the producer’s seat to the stage to receive the Television Academy’s Syd Cassyd Founders Award at the Sept. 12 ceremony.

The award is given to Academy members who have served the organization over many years. Although Jones has done pro-bono work for the Academy in many areas, his longest-running contribution has been in the production of the Creative Arts Emmys, the ceremony at which the vast majority of Emmy Awards are handed out.

Far longer than the Primetime Emmy Awards, which are televised live but which only hand out about one-fourth of the nearly 100 Emmy categories, the Creative Arts Emmys take place a week or two before the main show and are later aired in an edited version.

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This year, FXX will broadcast a two-hour version of the show on Saturday, Sept. 19, a week after it takes place. For the first time in two decades, Jones will not produce; Bob Bain will handle that job while Jones sits in the audience and then receives his award.

“Spike has been an important part of the DNA of the Academy for a very long time,” said Television Academy Chairman and CEO Bruce Rosenblum in a statement. “He has strongly influenced the artistic direction of the Creative Arts Emmy Awards, and shaped it into a wonderful celebration of the many artists, technicians and talents who are the heart and soul of our industry… He cares passionately about our mission to push the boundaries of television, and for this he is a most deserving recipient of the Syd Cassyd Award.”

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Jones is also producing this year’s Emmy nominations announcement. Other productions by his company, SJ2 Entertainment, include the Academy’s Royce Hall concert “SCORE: A Concert of Music Composed for Television,” as well as the Daytime Emmy Awards, the Film Independent Spirit Awards, the Writers Guild Awards and the Jerry Lewis telethon.

He is the son of Spike Jones, the hugely successful bandleader and satirist who enjoyed a string of hits in the ’40s and ’50s, including “All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth” and “Der Fueher’s Face.”