The Oscars really should have come calling at Conan O’Brien’s door a long time ago.
But the time is certainly right at this moment in history.
Does it have something to do with Donald Trump winning the election? What doesn’t, considering the currently quaking foundations of just about every America institution? Why wouldn’t the Oscars, as American an institution as apple pie and the First Amendment, be affected/inflicted?
That doesn’t mean it isn’t a brilliant move all on its own. Conan is an icon of late-night television, a singular comedy mind and performer, as original in his way as his idol, David Letterman.
He is also among the most experienced live television performers in the business, not only because he hosted a nightly late-night show on NBC and TBS for 28 years, but also because of his previous standout efforts hosting other award shows from the Emmys to the MTV Movie Awards.
And he’s been gone far too long from big, broadcast TV. Conan still does comedy in ways no one else before him or since has done, on things like his podcast, Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, his travel series on Max, Conan O’Brien Must Go, and guest shots like his riotous, hilarious, bilious visit to the You Tube hit interview series Hot Ones.
The Oscars are not known for brilliant moves. Heck, for years they tried to convince the public that the best solution to their annual struggle to find a good host was to have no host at all. Like a team with a lousy quarterback deciding to give up passing altogether.
But when they reverted to hiring great, funny hosts with experience in live performing, handing the gig to Jimmy Kimmel five times, the last three years in a row, they saw the light. Kimmel was outstanding in the role, especially during this year’s unusually entertaining telecast. And when he decided to step away from the assignment this year it opened the door to some creative thinking.
Maybe that first meant taking a run at John Mulaney, who has hosted numerous SNLs and his own late night entry on Netflix.
But the final deal landing Conan, which I was told by a Conan insider came together quickly, is a stroke of genius, not just because he will almost certainly bring his A-game— and Conan got game—but because the idea of Conan doing the Oscars is already stirring the sort of excitement the Oscar show used to be able to generate all by itself, because of the movies and the stars involved. (Lately, not so much.)
Just one already ubiquitous clip, Conan, in 2006, trying to control the length of the Emmys by locking Bob Newhart in air-tight box that contained only exactly 3 hours of air, is enough to pump up the anticipation.
We are almost certainly going to get a dose of that kind of wildly creative comedy on a Conan-hosted Oscars.
What we are much less likely to get, except from the presenters and the winners probably—is a show shot through with Trump-inspired one-liners. And the Academy will likely sleep easier knowing that.
Given the long-standing and now even moreso can’t-standing animus in Hollywood toward the once and future President Trump, the chances that the show would turn into a slur-fest slugfest of anger, disgust, and frustration were quite high.
Trump’s ugly hostility toward Kimmel was bad enough when he wasn’t able to threaten broadcast licenses. Kimmel, who zinged Trump to effusive applause at the last ceremony, is not the kind of guy who ever backs down. So the anticipation for venomous answering tweets might have equaled the anticipation for the actual awards.
Conan has no known feud with Trump or his entourage. He did once irritate Citizen Trump by asking him, on the air, how much money he had in his pockets, and when compelled to empty them Trump could only turn up a condom. But generally, as a guest, there was no friction coming from Trump—or Conan.
And pointedly, on a podcast with tech guru Kara Swisher last year Conan suggested that Trump’s greatest crime was that “he’s hurt political comedy by being so outlandish himself.”
Conan compared trying to skewer Trump to trying to parody The National Enquirer.
“If you go and buy a real National Enquirer, it says, ‘Elvis sighted in UFO; he has tentacles for arms. Ghost-baby turns into vampire and attacks Michael Jackson’s ghost. There’s no way to parody that. You can’t parody something that already has that crazy, irregular shape. It’s not possible.”
In his monologues while he still had a show during Trump’s first presidency, Conan, of course, made jokes about him. But it was not the foundation of his comedic approach, which he once described as “sophisticated silliness.”
From his very first pitch to NBC executives about the kind of late-night show he would give them he said: “I think the time is right for silliness.”
It turned out the time was right then, in 1993, when Conan O’Brien first stepped out onto the stage as host of Late Night.
But it may never be righter than it is right now. And imagine how right it might be on March 2nd, when he steps out onto the stage to host the Oscars.
How much will America need some silly laughs then?
And the Oscars will have just the man to deliver them.
