There wasn't a happier person in the room than Anthony Anderson when the nominations for the 2016 Emmy Awards were revealed Wednesday.
The 45-year-old actor practically freaked out as co-announcer Lauren Graham announced his name as the first nominee for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for his work on the ABC sitcom Black-ish.
"WHOOOOOOA!" he yelled, as she announced his name as the first Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series nominee. "Hi Mama! I know you're watching! Hi Mama!"
"Congratulations," Graham told him.
"Thank you," he said, joking, "You don't even have to name nobody else, just go with your next category."
He was just as enthusiastic while announcing the name of his Blackish co-star Tracee Ellis Ross as an Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series nominee and also when he revealed the show itself was nominated for Best Comedy Series.
"TRACY ELLIS ROSS! BLACK-ISH!" he yelled.
When Bruce Rosenblum, chairman and CEO of the Television Academy, began to reveal the name of their show as a nominee for Outstanding Comedy Series, Anderson interrupted him.
"LET ME SAY IT! BLACK-ISH! OH!" he shouted.
"I'm excited, I'm nervous, I'm shaking," Anderson told E! News' Will Marfuggi exclusively later in the day.
After the nominations were announced, the actor phoned Ross.
"She congratulated me. She screamed just as loud as I did," he said.
This marks the first Outstanding Comedy Series nod for the show, the first Emmy nomination for the actress and the second for Anderson. He was nominated for the same role last year in what which marked the show's first Emmy nod.
This year, he competes against Transparent's Jeffrey Tambor, who won the award last year, Master of None's Aziz Ansari, Shameless' William H. Macy, The Last Man on Earth's Will Forte and Silicon Valley's Thomas Middleditch.
Ross' competitors are last year's winner Julia Louis-Dreyfus from Veep, Inside Amy Schumer's Amy Schumer, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt's Ellie Kemper, Getting On's Laurie Metcalfe and Grace and Frankie's Lily Tomlin.
Black-ish competes against Veep, which won last year, Transparent, Silicon Valley, Modern Family, Master of None and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
"It's great to be nominated," Anderson said. "It would be better to go home with a statue but it's fun."
It's humbling to be associated with the talent that I'm associated with...and to have your work recognized by your peers and the academy," he added. "It's just a beautiful thing." "