He was never nominiated before the final season, so what was it about his work in that last year that caused him to win? There was a TV guide article around the time that the show was going off the air in which Valerie Bertinelli commented that none of the actors had ever won an emmy. He beat 2 actors from Cheers which was a much more beloved emmy series.

It was probably because with the show going off it was decided to finally honnor him for his entire work on the show, not just in that one year. I think the same sort of thing happened with John Ritter and Robert Guillaume who finally won when their shows weren't as great as they were earlier when they should have won.

That's very true. I can't really remember the last year's performance, but I do remember that last episode/pilot thing he did and it was dreadful.

There's an episode in the last season with Lee Grant as his old girlfriend. Maybe that was the episode he submitted to win. I agree that he probably won because they wanted to honor him for the whole show and its true about Robert Guilliame and John Ritter's series. I also think there was a Norman Lear factor, Harrington was one of the last actors in a popular Lear series and the emmies had a lot of respect for Lear and his shows. Once the dust cleared and shows like MASH, Taxi and Barney Miller weren't around anymore the actors from Lear's shows looked awfully good to the emmy people. How else to explain how Isabel Sanford, Marla Gibbs and Sherman Hemsley were all nominted in 1984 for the Jeffersons when that show looked so long in the tooth that it was barely watchable anymore.