Catherine O'Hara's onscreen kids pay tribute to "mama" at the Emmys

The annual rundown of all the beloved entertainment figures who’ve died in the past year is always a series of gut-punches. Especially tough are the people whose deaths you’d somehow gotten over until you see their pictures in the awards’ slideshow. But while there were a number of towering TV figures who received additional tribute in Monday’s Emmys broadcast (Jamie Lee Curtis’ tearful goodbyes to Rob Reiner and James Burrows were particularly touching), the first farewell was the saddest.  

For fans of all-time funny women, it was the unexpected entry on stage of Macauley Culkin, Annie Murphy and Dan Levy whose glowing reminiscences of their shared fictional mother that truly hit home. Culkin got a necessary tension-break by chiding his Home Alone mom O’Hara for forgetting him—twice, but the now 46-year-old actor struggled to get through his heartfelt words about the woman he called “mama.” “She always showed up when I asked her to,” Culkin stated, “because that’s Catherine. That’s what she did. She showed up. And this is the best that we can do for her tonight.