Horror comedy Widow’s Bay ran away with eight early Emmys for its debut season Monday (AEST) at a ceremony eight days before the main awards show.

Hospital drama The Pitt had a strong second-year showing with four of its own, and Rob Reiner posthumously won an acting Emmy nearly nine months after his killing.

DTF St. Louis won big with six awards in the limited series categories, with co-stars and veteran actors David Harbour and Linda Cardellini both becoming first-time Emmy winners.

Apple TV’s Widow’s Bay, with Matthew Rhys as mayor of a small New England town dealing with a centuries-old curse, won categories including cinematography, sound, music and production design.

Betty Gilpin won best guest actress in a comedy for her role on the show, and read a rapid-fire comic poem as her acceptance speech.

The poem included the lines “our business is stupid, but actors are the bomb” and “let’s all lean more toward Sam Shepard and less toward Sam Altman”.

HBO’s The Pitt – the year’s top nominee with 25 and the reigning best drama winner for its first season – claimed a guest acting award for 73-year-old first-time nominee Ernest Harden Jr, as well as for its prosthetic makeup and casting.

Another top nominee, Apple TV’s first-year horror comedy Widow’s Bay, brought in four trophies of its own, including wins for production design and sound. 

At a ceremony that otherwise moved at a blazing-fast clip with a breezy mood, a long, thoughtful ovation came when Rob Reiner was announced as best guest actor in a comedy for his work on The Bear.

Five-time Emmy winner Michael J Fox is also nominated in the same category on Shrinking for playing a patient with Parkinson’s disease, which the actor was diagnosed with in the 1990s.

Reiner’s friend and fellow The Bear guest star Jamie Lee Curtis was among those in the crowd paying him tribute.

Reiner was killed along with his wife Michele Singer Reiner in December, and their son, who has pleaded not guilty, has been charged with stabbing them to death.

His win came some 50 years after winning two Emmy Awards for his acting on All in the Family.

Harden, who won for playing Louie Cloverfield, the emergency room’s constant presence and constantly struggling alcoholic on The Pitt, wept when his name was called. 

Harden Jr has finally won recognition after decades in show business. Photo: AAP

“I am just on cloud 25,” he said backstage at the Peacock Theatre in Los Angeles. 

Harden’s first speaking role was in the 1975 Robert Redford-Faye Dunaway thriller Three Days of the Condor – and he had a three-season role on the sitcom The Jeffersons in the 1970s – but has acted for decades without awards recognition. 

The Pitt dominated this year’s drama acting nominations for its second season. Three women from the show were up for best guest actress in a drama, but all lost out to Shailene Woodley for her role on Paradise.

Woodley said backstage that she was a fan of the dystopian Hulu series during its first season, and loved getting to play a survivor who holes up for years alone in Elvis Presley’s Graceland in Memphis to open its second season.

The Television Academy hands out well over 100 primetime Emmys, and most of them are being presented this weekend in a pair of ceremonies. 

They were previously known as the Creative Arts Emmys but have now been rebranded as simply the first two nights of the 78th Emmy Awards.

Five categories normally on the main telecast were bumped to the earlier weekend, among them best supporting actor in a limited series, won by Harbour in his third nomination.

Best supporting actress in a limited series was won by Cardellini in her fourth nomination of an elite TV career that includes roles on Freaks and Geeks and Mad Men.

Harbour and Cardellini both become first-time Emmy winners. Photo: AAP

“Thank you to everybody who along the way through the years helped me get to this moment of a real dream come true,” Cardellini said from the stage, through tears.

Both Widow’s Bay and The Pitt can add up to six more Emmys to their totals on that final night.

Pluribus, another Apple TV Emmy rookie from Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan, won four trophies Sunday night including editing, production design and sound mixing.

The primetime September 14 ceremony, also at the Peacock Theatre, will be hosted by Mariska Hargitay, who was among the early winners, getting two Emmys for the documentary she directed about her mother Jayne Mansfield, My Mom Jayne.

Bad Bunny won his first career Emmy Award for his Super Bowl halftime show, which took seven trophies at the first of the weekend’s ceremonies on Saturday.

Pluribus, the one-woman-against-the-hivemind drama from Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan that could challenge The Pitt in the top categories, won for its editing, production design and sound mixing. Margo’s Got Money Troubles also won three craft awards. 

-AAP