Wait—are these the Peabody Awards or the Comedy Awards?
The venerable media-awards show upped the laugh factor Monday at a glittery ceremony in New York City by giving a shout-out to a large number of funnyguys and funnygals from hit comedy shows, including the casts of Parks and Recreation and Portlandia, as well as Stephen Colbert.
Even newly minted box-office breakout Channing Tatum was there—but nope, he didn't snag props for his revelatory 21 Jump Street comedy chops. The star lent a big hand to a Peabody-winning project, and you'll be intrigued to find out what it was…
Channing and his lovely wife, Jenna Dewan-Tatum, were executive producers of the HBO documentary Earth Made of Glass, which sheds a light on the horrific 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
"It's nice to be recognized for a project that we feel we're really proud of," Jenna told reporters backstage. "I think it has a great message, and it's nice just to get that awareness out."
Portlandia's Fred Armisen was equally elated with his show's win, and we had one burning question for the funnyman: How did he and costar Carrie Brownstein plan to split custody of their brand-spankin'-new Peabody trophy?
"I think what we should do is, we should just donate it to one of our friends," the Saturday Night Live wiz cracked to us. "We have someone keep it for us, and we visit that one friend."
That might be a good game plan for the cast of Parks and Recreation, which showed up in full force to soak up the well-deserved kudos: Amy Poehler, Aziz Ansari, Adam Scott, Retta, Nick Offerman, Aubrey Plaza and Jim O'Heir.
The Peabody victory was especially sweet following recent news that show had been renewed for a fifth season. O'Heir, in particular, has kept a humble outlook on the show's success.
"There's never been a lot of breathing room with this show—we're always waiting: 'What's gonna happen, what's gonna happen?'" he admitted backstage. "Some shows—your Modern Family—they know they've got two years, three years. We've never had that. So to get that call—'We wanna do season five'—hell, yeah!"
"I have résumés, just in case," Offerman deadpanned about the show's initial uncertainty. "I had to give them to Game of Thrones."
Thrones, of course, was another series honored with a Peabody this year. Star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau told E! News he was thrilled that the award validated ambitious, fantasy-driven shows like theirs—a tough sell, given today's reality-driven, serialized-TV climate.
"I think one of the big issues when we started out was, there was this stigma with fantasy that was a little black and white—'no one really wants to watch it,'" he said. "But I think [the Peabody Award] shows that taking a risk like that is worth it—that's what you want."
For the full list of Peabody winners—which also includes Homeland, Jeopardy! and Treme—check out www.peabody.uga.edu.