Conan O’Brien had his first stint hosting the Oscars this year and based on the general reception of his performance, it won’t be his last. O’Brien got solid reviews as host, but one now has to wonder just what the show would have been like if O’Brien’s original plans for the opening had gone through.
Appearing alongside writer Mike Sweeney on his own Conan O'Zbrien Needs A Friend podcast, O'Brien discussed his experience as host of the 2025 Academy Awards. He also shared a lot of details about the things that didn’t happen. Before it was decided that Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande would actually open the show, there was going to be a long video segment with Conan appearing in several nominated films, similar to something previous Oscar host Billy Crystal used to do
It seems that opening was killed when it was decided to make changes following the Southern California wildfires. Other ideas were killed instead by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences who didn't like some of their ideas. O'Brien said…
At one point, I thought this would be really great if The Oscar is just on the couch? Let’s lay it on a really big couch and I’ll be vacuuming and say, ‘Could you at least lift your feet? Or could you at least get up and help? Load the dishwasher?’ We wanted to do it and they just said, ‘No, no no, that can’t happen.’
The idea, according to Conan, was that a giant Oscar statue would remain completely motionless, but would be treated as if it was a person. This idea didn’t work for the Academy, not because of any of O’Brien’s particular jokes, but because having the Oscar lying down is apparently just something that is not allowed. O’Brien continued…
One of the people from the Academy came forward and said, ‘Oscar can never be horizontal.’ And that blew my mind. Like, wow, this is like the thigh bone of St. Peter. This is a religious icon.
I’ve never thought about it, but I suppose it’s true that I’ve never seen an Oscar lying on its side, at least not in any official image from the Academy. It’s certainly not uncommon for organizations to have strict rules for how their trademarked characters or images can be portrayed, but I had no idea this was one of them.
Another Oscar rule, in case you’re curious, is that Oscar can’t wear clothes. Mike Sweeney says another part of the same sketch would have put Oscar in an apron and serving leftovers to Conan, but that was killed because Oscar must always be nude. According to Sweeney, somebody told him…
‘No clothing on Oscar.’ Oscar is always naked.
While there may have been things that Conan couldn’t do, he stresses that everybody he worked with at the Oscars and with ABC was “great’ so there are no hard feelings over the things that couldn’t be done. It sounds like the whole experience was fairly exhausting, but it also sounds like Conan O’Brien had a great time. Maybe he will be willing to do it all again next year.
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