When the first commercial break hit in Sunday’s telecast for The 97th Academy Awards ceremony, I was struck with the realization that it was the best opening half-hour I could remember in all my years watching the show. That excellence was a culmination of several daisy-chaining moments that came together to make it a thrilling stretch of TV.
All Hail Conan, The King Of Weird
Cynthia Erivo’s show-stopping (show-starting?) performance of Defying Gravity (with a little help from Ariana Grande). Kieran Culkin’s charming, motor-mouthed acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actor. Adam Sandler affectionately grabbing Timothée Chalamet and saying his name in a stereotypically Adam Sandler-y voice in a callback to a hilarious Nikki Glaser bit from the Golden Globes. All of this was great.
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But the biggest factor elevating the show? Conan O’Brien was on hand to bring the ceremony together, and keep the night consistently entertaining with bits that went right up to the limit of good taste, then tap danced on that line.
It started at the very beginning as Conan did the thing where he superimposed himself into one of the movies. This is classic Oscar host shtick: Jimmy Kimmel did it at the 2023 ceremony, parachuting onto the stage after the intro edited him into Top Gun: Maverick.
But Conan’s choice of movie (and the way he was added to it) was deeply Conan: absurd, smartly written, and a little gross. Taking the place of Margaret Qualley in The Substance, Conan appeared for the first time by emerging from Demi Moore’s split-open back. Of course, he lost his shoe, and had to stick his arm back in to retrieve it. In an especially good bit of heightening, he had to crawl all the way in for his missing cufflinks.
The Elephants In The Room
Once he was onstage, the hard work began, and Conan handled it like a pro. There were two big elephants in the room, and Conan deftly herded both. In late January shortly after the Academy announced the year’s nominees, Karla Sofia Gascon — a contender in Best Actress for her work in Emilia Perez — had her campaign derailed when a bunch of old, bigoted tweets resurfaced.
By a bunch you might think I mean like five or six. But no, there were dozens. And by old, you might think I mean from over a decade ago. But no, some were from the early 2020s. Netflix stopped featuring Gascon in campaign materials, and it was an open question whether she would even attend the ceremony. She did, and Conan expertly joked about the scandal, deflating the tension, getting a big laugh, and allowing the show to move on.
“Little fact for ya, Anora uses the F-word 479 times,” he said. “That’s three more than the record set by Karla Sofia Gascon’s publicist.” Then, he acted out the publicist with a classically Conan-y shriek. “‘You tweeted what!'”
“Karla Sofia Gascon is here tonight. And Karla, if you are gonna tweet about the Oscars, remember: my name… is Jimmy Kimmel.”
O’Brien also had to address the Los Angeles fires, the prolonged blaze that leveled much of Altadena, and affected many of the people in the room. He did so, up top, arguing for the importance of film in trying times. But, even better, he let LA firefighters tell some of his edgiest jokes, admonishing the crowd, “Everyone in the audience has to laugh. These are heroes!”
“Well our hearts go out to all who have lost their homes,” LAFD Captain Erik Scott said. “And I’m talking about the producers of Joker 2.”
That’s a joke that Conan, genuinely, couldn’t tell without backlash, from the people in the room and from the viewers at home. But putting it in the mouth of one of the people who helped save the city from the fires made it work. Especially since the last joke in this segment had one of the firefighters taking aim at Conan. “It’s great to be back with Conan,” said LAFD Fire Captain Jodi Slicker. “Usually when he calls… he’s stuck in a tree.”
Electric Absurdity
And, there was the classic Conan absurdity. Each year, the Oscars try and fail to cut the show down to under three hours. Conan’s contribution? Doing a time-wasting music number about how he wasn’t going to waste time. The sandworm from Dune: Part Two even played along in the orchestra.
Conan was a breath of fresh air. Kimmel, who has hosted four times since 2017, isn’t a bad host, but he’s solid to a fault. You know that, whatever happens, he’s a steady hand who’ll guide the show to its conclusion. That’s good, but he’s also pretty vanilla. Conan’s bizarre energy gave the show the electricity it needed. He can manage a heartfelt ode to the people of LA, and bluntly (and hilariously) weigh in on the Drake-Kendrick Lamar beef. Movies can capture so many different feelings that it only seems right to have a host who can do the same.
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