In what might turn out to be the only good news to drop this month, it was just announced that Conan O’Brien will be hosting the 2025 Academy Awards, even despite the fact that it’s a stressful job that historically pays comedians less than half the show’s truffle budget.
O’Brien made it clear that he was a solid choice for the Oscars right from the jump, announcing the news with a brief sketch in which he accepts an Oscar, only to have it snatched away by an unseen figure who informs him that he’s merely the host.
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Obviously, O’Brien has a lot of awards show experience. In 2014, he hosted the MTV Movie Awards — and, incidentally, he made that announcement by jokingly dunking on the “garbage” Oscars.
And he’s hosted the Emmys twice, in 2002 and 2006. As further proof that O’Brien always brings his A-game to awards shows, fans have been sharing clips from these shows, such as the time he sang a Music Man-esque show tune about how financially screwed NBC is, and once ensured a tight running time by threatening to cut off TV legend Bob Newhart’s oxygen supply.
Weirdly enough, O’Brien was just talking about the pitfalls of hosting the Oscars on his podcast two weeks ago. As listeners to Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend may recall, the subject of the Academy Awards came up during his chat with repeat Oscar host Billy Crystal. While Conan didn’t offer any specific indication that he’d been approached about hosting the show (which, one would imagine, would have happened a while ago), he said that he had been pondering the Academy Awards, and vocalized his concerns about being an Oscar host today, as opposed to when Crystal was first doing it in the ‘90s.
The big problem, according to O’Brien, is that the Oscars used to feel like a communal experience. But the movies that get nominated these days aren’t as culturally ubiquitous as they once were. “I was thinking about this too before he came today, which is (that) media entertainment has changed so much. The people used to all be on the same page, for better or worst,” Conan argued.
“It’s tougher now, I think, because – I watch a lot of movies, and I’m in entertainment, but I haven’t seen (like) seven of the things they’re talking about,” O’Brien told Crystal. “Whereas, when I think about the shows that you were hosting, you had amazing, great material; you’re very comfortable, but also, everybody’s gathered around the campfire. And it felt like a time that might not come back.”
He’s right, in Crystal’s day, most viewers were extremely familiar with the films he was gratingly crooning about.
While smaller, less widely-seen movies being honored by the Oscars may be better to the overall integrity of the award, it does limit the host’s joke arsenal somewhat if the audience hasn’t caught up with many of the nominees (although, to be fair, box office juggernauts Oppenheimer and Barbie were both nominated for Best Picture last year).
That being said, O’Brien is a consummate entertainer, who will no doubt go above and beyond in this prestigious (yet underpaid) role no matter what.
Hopefully younger fans won’t just be expecting him to do his trademark “rubbing hot sauce in his eyes while slowly losing his mind” routine at the Oscars.