It has yet to be seen what else horror programming might be honored for when the Emmy awards are handed out next weekend, but "True Blood" got things rolling in the right direction with what the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences felt was the industry's best casting.

Junie Lowry Johnson and Libby Goldstein were honored for Outstanding Casting for a Drama Series for the HBO program. The two beat out the casting teams from "The Tudors" on Showtime, "Mad Men" on AMC, "Damages" on FX and "Friday Night Lights" on NBC.

But the casting team were the only winners of note. "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel" creator Joss Whedon won his first-ever Emmy not for his years of strong television work, but instead for a Web-only musical he created during the 2008 Writers Guild of America strike.

Whedon, who was honored once before in 2000 with a writing nomination for his "Buffy" episode "Hush," won the Outstanding Special Class - Short Format Live-Action Entertainment Programs category with "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog."

Whedon shared the award with Michael Boretz and David Burns.

Also winning were "Chuck" for Outstanding Stunt Coordination, "Heroes" for Outstanding Special Visual Effects, "Battlestar Galactica" for Outstanding Sound Editing for a Series" and "Lost" for Creative Achievement in Interactive Media (Fictin) for The Dharma Initiative at DharmaWantsYou.com.

The 61st Primetime Emmys telecast will air Sept. 20 at 8 p.m. ET on CBS.