The 411 About David Letterman & Oscar

COMMENTS (21)

• Letterman also famously derided Roger Avary’s “I have to pee” acceptance speech by pointedly telling the world he (Letterman) had to pee too and you don’t see him onstage whining about it.

  Nothing against Jon Stewart or Steve Martin, but I’d love to see Dave at the Kodak.

  Comment by mheister — Monday February 25, 2008 @ 12:56pm PST  Reply to this post

• That’s weird. On his show, Letterman himself lamented he was never asked back – or maybe he just insinuated it in his self-effacing humor.

  Comment by RP — Monday February 25, 2008 @ 1:01pm PST  Reply to this post

• How about Jerry Seinfeld? Is he never asked? I think he deserves a shot.

  BTW, I think Jon Stewart was pretty good last night. At least I smiled whenever I saw his face as the night wore on.

  Comment by noho — Monday February 25, 2008 @ 2:22pm PST  Reply to this post

• Dave was the best host I’ve ever seen because he didn’t take it seriously. I hate the schmaltz fest. But even though the ratings would be huge, the stars would revolt because they don’t want anyone poking fun at them in a non-reverential way. There’s one rule to the Oscars, you don’t have to be funny, but you have to suck up. Dave was funny, but he didn’t suck up enough. We’ll never see Chris Rock again either because he didn’t suck up in a big way (he wasn’t particularly funny that night, either, but that doesn’t matter for this gig). I also doubt we’d ever see Colbert in character, because even though his persona is a joke, viewers might not get it and insiders would perceive it as too cutting and not enough of a suck up.

  Comment by Capon — Monday February 25, 2008 @ 2:40pm PST  Reply to this post

• Actually, the bit by Letterman was first conceived by Thomas Meehan in the New Yorker. It was called ‘Yma Dream’, and was a humor piece about a party in which the narrator disastrously introduces a group of notables to each other: “”lya, Ira, here’s Yma, Ava, Oona. Ilya, Ira — Ona, Ida, Abba, Ugo, Aga.”

  Comment by chris — Monday February 25, 2008 @ 4:47pm PST  Reply to this post

• The ratings would be huge? Maybe you haven’t been keeping up with late night ratings over the past 12 years.

  Dave was on the absolute top of the world when he hosted the Oscars and there wasn’t really any way that he could meet the expectations. But not only did he not meet them; he and his crew completely misread the show and badly fumbled the ball. It was sweaty and uncomfortable to watch, which is fine on any given night on Late Show (or Tonight or Late Night, etc.) but unforgivable on the Oscars.

  No matter what comes out of the Letterman camp, I highly doubt that he’s been asked back “every year” since.

  Comment by bob "What the hell"? Hope — Monday February 25, 2008 @ 4:57pm PST  Reply to this post

• Remember as well that Dave hosted the least suspenseful Oscars in decades. All of those pegged to win awards (Martin Landau, Jessica Lange, etc.) did so. I recall that I misjudged only three trophies all night–in categories like sound editing and art direction!

  Letterman didn’t have much spontaneous stuff to react to like Jack Palance’s one-arm push-ups or Michael Moore’s anti-Bush speech.

  Comment by CapitalCat — Monday February 25, 2008 @ 6:48pm PST  Reply to this post

• Dave is a terrific guy on stage and very funny and creative when he wants to be. But he seems to have some insecurity issues and they often involve people who can’t hold a candle to him in the talent department-for years he was whining about not being accepted by Oprah which is just stupid since he’s way better than she could ever hope to be. So he just doesn’t feel confident enough to host The Oscars and we all lose out because of it. It’s puzzling because his broadcast idol is Johnny Carson and Johnny practically had a lock in hosting the Academy Awards. Dave is so creative he even included Beavis and Butt-Head the year he did host. We see none of that in recent hosts. Just a lot of normal MCing and jokes that aren’t that good.

  Rodney

  http://www.cuttingconfessionsfilm.blogspot.com

  http://www.myspace.com/rodneywga

  Comment by Rodney — Monday February 25, 2008 @ 8:02pm PST  Reply to this post

• The reason Billy Crystal is so good at hosting is because he is able to ad-lib on the spot. Nobody else has ever been able to do that. Whoopi was the absolute worst she was horrible. Chris Rock was terrible too. Surely there must be a really funny black comedian who could do it some night. Jon Stewart has struck out twice now he never should’ve been invited back. Jimmy Kimmel should get a chance next year his show is right across the street he could do a hilarious opening running across Hollywood Blvd. trying to get into the Kodak from his El Capitan studio. If you look back in history the best host in those days was Bob Hope he did it more than anyone else. Seinfeld would be good too as another poster suggested. Let Jerry do it next year or give Kimmel a shot. Jimmy would have the most fun I think his personality is perfect for poking fun at the pomposity of the Oscars.

  Comment by Anonymous — Monday February 25, 2008 @ 8:30pm PST  Reply to this post

• It doesn’t matter who hosts and how good/bad they are, the stuff inbetween is always incredibly dull.

  Comment by Thomas — Tuesday February 26, 2008 @ 6:59am PST  Reply to this post

• Jon Stewart was a great host; best since Billy Crystal so stop being so negative and give him his due. I hope they ask him again next; not his fault the show is so bloody dull.

  Comment by Starly — Tuesday February 26, 2008 @ 3:13pm PST  Reply to this post

• Does everybody have collective amnesia? Letterman was terrible as a host and the Oprah-Uma routine was unfunny and went on far too long, to the incredible embarrassment of the audience.

  Comment by Richard — Tuesday February 26, 2008 @ 3:22pm PST  Reply to this post

• I’m still annoyed that I missed Letterman’s Academy Award, as I’m a pretty big fan of his, and I’ve never really seen any clips of it, either. Anyone have links to where latecomers can actually SEE Letterman’s performance and judge for ourselves?

  Comment by Andy — Tuesday February 26, 2008 @ 5:00pm PST  Reply to this post

• People forget that the year he hosted, the oscars got one of their biggest ratings ever, despite a less than great slate of nominees.

  Comment by joojoobee — Tuesday February 26, 2008 @ 6:00pm PST  Reply to this post

• Sorry, I missed Jon Stewart’s turn as Host this year, but have seen some highlights in which he seemed “brilliant,” and of course beg to differ with those of you who think that Dave did not do an OUTSTANDING job when he hosted back in ’95. Maybe people are just tired of the contrived feel and commercialism of the “Oscar” telecast? “Whoopi” and “Steve” deserve kudos as well. And, I really thought that Chris Rock was funny as host, along with “Ellen” who was absolutely hysterical.

  The hosts work within a “tightly” timed format, so there really is not a lot extra “room” to work with. Simply asked, “Could you do it?” That’s right. I thought not.

  Comment by Greg — Tuesday February 26, 2008 @ 11:14pm PST  Reply to this post

• I didn’t see the whole thing, but I LOVED Dave’s stint as Oscar’s host that year. I was quite literally stunned to discover over the following days that his hosting was considered sub-par, I enjoyed it a lot.

  Basically, Dave transferred some of his Late Show bits to the Oscars, and I thought it was clever. The bit with him recreating Jack Nicholson’s bashing of a taxi with a golf club was funny, as was his whole “Cabin Boy” bit.

  I wish that he’d do it again.

  Comment by Joe — Tuesday February 26, 2008 @ 11:58pm PST  Reply to this post

• The Uma-Oprah thing wasn’t the worst part of Dave’s Oscar year. It was bringing the Stupid Pet Tricks into it. (The top 10 list made sense at the Oscar show — the pet tricks did NOT).

  I’d like to see him do it again, too.

  I think Conan would be a hoot, too.

  Comment by RENTON — Wednesday February 27, 2008 @ 1:49am PST  Reply to this post

• I’d love to see Billy Connelly host it jut once – they probably wouldn’t ask him back after he’d offended all the pretentious pricks that frequent the award show circuit.

  Comment by RdDan — Wednesday February 27, 2008 @ 6:35am PST  Reply to this post

• Dave did a fun job–I laughed a lot, but the best recent host was Steve Martin. Whoopi was the worse with the f@rt jokes and such. Crystal was great, but the act is getting old (does he know any songs from the 70′s to the present?) Ellen, Jon Stewart and Chris Rock were all fine.
  Seinfeld says it’s a losing gig–either you stink or they put you through it another year. As long as it isn’t Leno or Seacrest, I’ll be happy.

  Comment by gordonpurcell — Wednesday February 27, 2008 @ 7:51am PST  Reply to this post

• My favorite part of Dave’s hosting was when he introduced politically-active presenters Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon with, “Let’s see what they’re p*ssed off about this week.” If looks could kill, Dave would have been a goner.

  I agree that the Stupid Pet Trick segment was a mistake, but other than that I thought Dave was hilarious.

  Comment by John Carmeu — Wednesday February 27, 2008 @ 11:11am PST  Reply to this post

• Here´s Daves Oscars hosting(first 8 min http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7316729493757012761 ) judge for yourself. A lot of the jokes are killers and he´s certainly not bad. I think the croud is the problem. Its like trying to do the jokes you tell you friends, at your grandmothers birthday party.
  And you hear them supress their laughter cause they know its not the normal Oscar humour but really they wanna laugh out loud.
  The whole Uma Oprah thing is not understood if you dont know the scetch by Anne Bancroft (seen here
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qwhlpysvjs ) But its never easy to entertain a dumb croud, then you have to rely on knock-knock jokes.

  Chaocito everybody!

  Comment by simpo — Wednesday March 5, 2008 @ 4:29pm PST  Reply to this post