Jimmy Kimmel knows from television

Over 64 ceremonies, the prime-time Emmy Awards have had 109 hosts -- yes, multiple hosts many years -- but never anyone quite like the person who will walk out onto the stage of the Nokia Theatre on Sunday.

Jimmy Kimmel is slightly dangerous -- like Ricky Gervais, a gleeful mauler of the TV hand that feeds him -- but no more so than a few others who have come before (Conan O'Brien, Garry Shandling, David Letterman or even Johnny Carson). He's certainly funny, sharp and knows how to hit his marks. But then Jane Lynch managed all that and more last year.

What makes him unique? Almost certainly this: Kimmel may know more about television than any Emmy host in history. He is a quintessential television polymath or, less charitably, TV nerd -- a human encyclopedia obsessed with TV personalities, shows and trends. Kimmel not only watches TLC series, but can actually quote from them -- and does, to considerable comic effect, on "Jimmy Kimmel Live," which most nights is a running commentary on his various TV obsessions.

Most Emmy hosts mostly know just about the show they star in. Kimmel knows about every show everyone stars in.

How will this impact the ceremony? In a few ways -- all potentially good and special. Foremost, Kimmel is a TV insider who should and likely will work the room like he's still the outsider, or -- as he put it recently -- "I'm like the sad kid sitting outside of the house where the party is happening, and [they] finally go: 'All right. Come in and have a drink.' I don't know that the world has come closer to my humor, but I think it's just attrition more than anything. If you hang in there long enough, eventually you're part of the group."

Beyond the host, though, there's much else of interest. There are those battles and that dramas that seem so monumental -- and certainly are to those in the middle of them. Will "Mad Men" score a record fifth drama win in a row -- or will "Breaking Bad" or "Homeland" emerge a spoiler? Will "Mad Men's" Jon Hamm ever win best actor? And, show of hands, Michelle Dockery ("Downton Abbey") or Claire Danes ("Homeland")?

You can be assured Kimmel will have something to say about all of this -- something funny.

(Verne Gay is a

Newsday staff writer)