Dave Chappelle, John Oliver made #DCPublicSchools the Emmys' best trending topic

Maeve McDermott | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Colbert: 'The biggest TV star of the year is Trump' Emmy Awards host Stephen Colbert says the show has to reference President Donald Trump as he was "the biggest television star of the last year." (Sept. 13)

Thank Dave Chappelle for coining the 2017 Emmys' most wonderfully-unexpected hashtag.

The comedian took the stage with Melissa McCarthy to present the award for best direction of a comedy series at Sunday night's ceremonies, going off-script to shout out one deserving subject.

"Shout out to D.C. public schools," said Chappelle, a District native who resides part-time in the city.

Considering Washington, D.C.'s public school system continues to struggle with high staff turnover and increased personnel cuts, Chappelle's name-drop was meant to advocate for the public school system.

John Oliver picked up where Chappelle left off, bringing up the embattled school district when accepting his Emmy for best writing for a comedy series.

"Like Dave Chappelle, I would like to unexpectedly thank D.C. public schools, because I think it would be great if it started trending on Twitter for no reason tonight whatsoever," he said. “If you’re tweeting about the Emmys at home, please use the hashtag #DCPublicSchools.”

The official D.C. public schools Twitter account was understandably thrilled, and many other users followed Oliver's advice, hashtagging random Emmys tweets with #DCPublicSchools, just because.

Other commenters took Chappelle and Oliver's name-drop a step further, calling on Emmys viewers to take action to support the school system, instead of just tweeting about it.

"What if y'all supported #DCPublicSchools students & teachers w/ funding & support and not just hashtagged tweets cuz @iamjohnoliver asked," one user wrote.



What an unexpected honor! We'd like to thank our educators, our families, and of course, our amazing students. #emmys #dcpublicschools — DC Public Schools (@dcpublicschools) September 18, 2017