Conan O’Brien Made for a Very Successful (and Weird) Oscar Host

Hosting the Oscars is almost always a zero-sum gain. If you’re good, you don’t really get much credit, since the focus of the show isn’t on you. If you’re not good, you become a punching bag. So, the fact that Conan O’Brien is actually getting good reviews for his hosting duties is worth taking note of. To be sure, he was very good. Moreover, I think the way he was good made for a way that the Academy Awards can continue to have strong hosts going forward, including O’Brien.

First of all, if you didn’t see his opening monologue, you can check it out now:

As you can see, he was the rare host able to still do his style of comedy while fitting into the Oscar template. You didn’t have to be familiar with him to appreciate his humor, while still realizing what aspects were unique to him. When the Academy has gone for stronger personalities in the past, they’re either so far afield from what’s expected that their jokes don’t land, or they modulate themselves to the point where what got them there is no longer in evidence. That was not the case here.

Moreover, O’Brien was able to get the Oscars to feel a little weird at times. Hell, I think he and Adam Sandler found the rare cut to the audience bit that didn’t fall completely flat. His riff with John Lithgow also worked well, and these are the types of things that almost never land. There’s a comfort at being awkward that he has, which makes the sweatier aspects of hosting feel more like quirky plans, as opposed to things destined to not work out on live television.

The success of Host Conan is a combination of the man himself being a fit for the job, the viewership being interested in something different, and the membership itself being ready for a slight turn towards the weird. It bodes well for future ceremonies. Some of the tributes and non-host segments will always fall flat. The winners will be differing degrees of good or bad. That’s all baked into the Oscar cake. A good host? Now that helps make for a successful Academy Award ceremony, in and of itself.

Going forward, I hope the Academy asks Conan O’Brien back, obviously, and I’m sure they will. I’m also sure they’ll want to have Jimmy Kimmel host again at some point, and that’s totally fine. Whether it’s O’Brien or someone else of his ilk, the Oscars deserve to get a little weird. The Academy membership is slowly getting cooler. We don’t have Anora as the Best Picture winner without that. A cooler and weirder Oscar host just makes sense for these times.

What did you think of Conan O’Brien as the Oscar host? Let us know!