2012 Primetime Emmy Awards: Jimmy Kimmel and Claire Danes Light Up Twitter

There were a couple of surprises during Sunday's 64^th Primetime Emmy Awards telecast: "Mad Men" was shut out, Damian Lewis beat out both Jon Hamm and Bryan Cranston in the Lead Actor category, and Angela Chase won her second Emmy.

Okay, so maybe that last one isn't entirely true, and maybe not even that much of a surprise after actress Claire Danes' outstanding portrayal of unstable an CIA agent Carrie Mathison on Showtime's "Homeland." (Danes also won an Emmy in 2010 for her role in "Temple Grandin.")

But what was surprising was the actress's eloquent speech, because it's hard to look at the now-pregnant, blonde Emmy winner and not still sometimes think of her as the adolescent Angela from the 1994 coming of age drama, "My So Called Life."

Claire Danes' acceptance speech had some surprising repercussions, too. In addition to thanking her "baby daddy," actor Hugh Dancy ("This doesn't mean anything without you," she told her proud hubby), Danes gave a unique shout out to her homeland co-star, actor Mandy Patinkin.

When Danes said, "Mandy Patinkin, holla!" Twitter unexpectedly went ablaze. There's nothing like a great Twitter debate, and a flurry of tweets debated if Danes was saluting her co-star with an urban catchphrase, or if she was she saluting the Jewish actor's heritage, as in "challah," by making a reference to the ceremonial bread reserved for Sabbath and holidays.

Danes hasn't elaborated (yet!), but one person who saw the backstage aftermath firsthand was TVLine.com's Michael Ausiello, who tweeted, "Just walked past Claire Danes backstage comforting an EXTREMELY emotional Mandy Patinkin."

If Danes unintentionally blew up Twitter, Jimmy Kimmel's deliberate Twitter prank also caused some mid-show mayhem.

Last week, the Emmy host promised viewers "the biggest prank ever," and it played out when he instructed his audience to pull a massive trick on people not watching the show by tweeting "OMG! Tracy Morgan just passed out on stage! Turn on ABC now!" Clearly in on the gag, comedian Tracy Morgan agreed to lay on the stage for about ten minutes, pretending to be passed out.

"Okay, hold my nunchucks," Morgan told Kimmel, before whipping the Okinawan weapon out of his tuxedo coat and laying on the floor.

Celebs like Stephen Colbert and Rosie O'Donnell tweeted the phony newsflash, and the retweets quickly multiplied to more than 25,000 within minutes.

If an Emmy telecast is measured by the success of Twitter firestorms, we'd say this one was a winner.

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