“COSMOS: A SpaceTime Odyssey,” shown by the National Geographic Channel and FOX, and HBO’s “Mr. Dynamite: The Rise of James Brown” are among the documentary, education and public service winners that the 74th annual Peabody Awards, it was announced Thursday by the Peabody program at the University of Georgia.
“Adventure Time,” a surreal cartoon series that enthralls teens and adults as well as kids, and the educational “Doc McStuffins” are also honored.
Judges also credited Frontline documentary, “United States of Secrets,” about the growth of government surveillance; “Human Harvest: China’s Illegal Organ Trade” by Flying Cloud Productions about the Chinese government’s the murder of political prisoners; “Brakeless” from “Independent Lens;” and “Freedom Summer,” from PBS’s “American Experience.”
Other documentary winners included “Children on the Frontline,” “Virunga,” a Netflix documentary, and “The Newburgh Sting,” an HBO documentary about four New Jersey men enticed into a terrorist plot by an FBI informant.
Previously announced entertainment winners are “The Americans,” “Black Mirror,” “Fargo,” “The Honorable Woman,” “Inside Amy Schumer,” “Jane the Virgin,” “The Knick,” “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” and “Rectify.”
All the winners of the 74th annual Peabodys will be presented with their awards on Sunday, May 31, at the first-ever nighttime, red-carpet Peabody ceremony.
Fred Armisen, a Peabody winner for his work on “Saturday Night Live” and his series “Portlandia,” is set to host the gala at Cipriani Wall Street in New York.
Pivot, Participant Media’s TV network, will premiere “The 74th Annual Peabody Awards on Pivot,” a 90-minute special on Sunday, June 21 at 9 p.m. ET.
See the full list of winners below.
Citations for Documentary Winners
“American Experience: Freedom Summer” (PBS)
American Experience Films, WGBH Educational Foundation, Firelight Films
With archival images, animation and fresh interviews, “Freedom Summer” recalls the voter-registration “freedom rides” of 1964, a campaign planned and trained for like a Civil Rights D-Day. The documentary is not only inspiring and instructive, it holds surprises even for those who believe they know this epochal American story.
“Children on the Frontline” (Channel 4)
ITN Productions
This “Dispatches” documentary addresses one of the most tragic facets of the civil war in Syria, the impact on the country’s children. Yet by focusing on five kids who go on learning and playing amid the chaos and danger, it becomes a powerful testament to resilience and adaptability.
“Human Harvest: China’s Illegal Organ Trade” (International Syndication) Flying Cloud Productions Inc.
With powerful testimonials about the intricacies of the trade and the human cost, including interviews with Chinese doctors who confide they’ve been coerced into removing organs from live political prisoners, this is a harrowing exposé of fiendish system of forced organ donor transplants.
“Independent Lens: Brakeless”
Brakeless LTD, Bungalow Town Productions, BBC, NHK, IKON, DR, Independent Television Service (ITVS)
A cautionary tale that vividly evokes a deadly, 2005 commuter-train crash in Japan as a metaphor to explore modern society’s relentless pursuit of speed and efficiency, it’s beautifully made and scored like a real-life thriller.
“Mr. Dynamite: The Rise of James Brown” (HBO)
Jigsaw Productions, Jagged Films, Inaudible Films in association with HBO Documentary Films
Alex Gibney‘s biography of the hardest working man in show business gets up and gets on the scene, telling a fascinating story about race and culture and politics with amazing archival clips and interviews with musicians who worked with him.
“The Newburgh Sting” (HBO)
Covert Productions in association with HBO Documentary Films and Impact Partners
A powerful, fascinating documentary, it uses archival surveillance video and eloquent, emotional interviews to deconstruct and discredit the case against four Newburgh, New Jersey, men lured into a would-be terrorist plot by an FBI informant in 2009.
“POV: American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs” (PBS)
American Documentary | POV
Engaging on multiple levels, the documentary surveys the life of a Chinese American philosopher, writer and activist who devoted 75 years to the labor, civil rights, and black power movements. Now 98, with a grandmotherly smile, she’s a charismatic presence on camera and still a challenging thinker.
“Soft Vengeance: Albie Sachs and the New South Africa” (SABC 2, DStv, channel 190 / GOtv, channel 65)
Ginzberg Productions
Compelling and inspiring, this well-constructed documentary chronicles the life and times of a hero of the anti-apartheid movement who championed nonviolence even after he survived a car-bomb maiming.
“United States of Secrets” (PBS)
FRONTLINE, in association with Kirk Documentary Group, Rain Media
With extensive, candid interviews from both critics and defenders, FRONTLINE provided a great public service, revealing in clear, comprehensible detail how the U.S. government in its post-9/11 zeal came to monitor and collect the communications of millions of people around the world – and here at home – and the lengths to which officials have gone to hide the massive surveillance from the public.
“Virunga” (Netflix)
Grain Media
An unusual but successful melding of investigative journalism and nature filmmaking, “Virunga” documents the work of courageous park rangers in the Congo to protect Africa’s mountain gorillas from war, poaching and industrial expansion.
Education
“COSMOS: A SpaceTime Odyssey” (National Geographic Channel, FOX)
Fuzzy Door Productions and Cosmos Studios, Inc. in association with FOX Broadcasting Company and National Geographic Channel
An update of Carl Sagan‘s famous series for the age of CGI, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson’s “COSMOSs” is not only an educational, eye-popping, near-psychedelic tour of our universe and beyond, it’s a passionate brief on behalf of science itself.
Public Service
“Ebola” (BBC World Service)
BBC World Service
An incredibly important and consequential response to a global crisis, this multi-pronged BBC World Service effort shrewdly employed a variety of platforms – Twitter, website and apps as well as radio – to keep Africans abreast of the epidemic’s advance and provide people the world over with reliable news.
“Entre el Abandono y el Rechazo (Between Abandonment and Rejection)” (Univision Network)
Univision News
Reflecting the high level of public interest in abandoned children at the southern U.S. borders, Univision’s coverage provided multi-perspective context that’s often missing in mainstream media’s English-language reports. It skillfully combined an overview of the phenomenon while following one family whose child disappeared trying the cross the border.
Children’s Programming
“Adventure Time” (Cartoon Network)
Cartoon Network Studios
An animated amalgam of sci-fi, fantasy, horror and fairy tale, it chronicles the escapades of an odd-looking human boy named Finn and his best friend, a shape-shifting dog named Jake, in the surreal Land of Ooo. Purely and wonderfully imaginative in manner of classic theatrical cartoons past, it entertains even as it subtly teaches lessons about growing up, accepting responsibility, and becoming who you’re meant to be.
“Doc McStuffins” (Disney Junior)
Brown Bag Films / Disney Junior
Charming, sweet and gently humorous, this animated series, featuring an African-American physician’s daughter who attends to damaged stuffed animals and other broken toys, alieves children’s fears about doctor visits even as it promotes medicine as a profession.