The prestige of the Telly Award is such that the number of entrants has grown steadily since 1980; nearly 11,500 entries were received for the 20th Annual Telly Awards, and were submitted by such companies as 20th Century Fox, MTV, IBM, M&M's/Mars, Mattel, and numerous other companies, both known and unknown.

Entries do not compete against each other, but are scored on a 10-point scale based on overall concept, overall quality, acting, cinematography, script, and several other technical aspects.

In the annual Telly Awards, entrants that score 7.0-8.9 receive a bronze Finalist Telly Award, and entrants scoring 9.0 and higher receive a silver Winner's Tellly Award.

For their Twentieth Anniversay, the Telly Awards held a special competition: The Classic Telly Award.  The special competition allowed any work done in the last 20 years to compete; this included past winners in the annual Telly Awards to see if their work could stand the test of time and new competition.  Nearly 1700 entries were received in The Classic Telly Awards, most from past winners.

But unlike the annual Telly Awards, only those entries scoring 9.0 and higher in The Classic Telly Awards competition received a trophy; a Gold Telly Award created specially for this event by the same company that make the Oscars ©.

It was in this competition that "Burnt Toast" won, in the Non-Broadcast - Entertainment category.