In recent years, it has become accepted fact that hosting the Oscars is a bad gig, and the Academy increasingly struggles to get new, interesting people to host the show. Well this year, that is NOT the case, as they have already landed Conan O’Brien as the host of the 97th Academy Awards.

 

This will be Conan’s first Oscars hosting gig—he previously hosted the Emmys—though he is comfortably within the Academy’s wheelhouse of preferring experienced hosts to emcee their (long, complicated) show. He’s kind of the perfect Oscars host, if you think about it. Conan has tons of experience running live shows, he’s at his best when things are going slightly wrong, he’s well established in the entertainment industry, familiar to both audiences at home and the celebrity audience in the room—more, he’s beloved by both of those demographics—but he’s not a “movie guy”, in that he isn’t an actor or filmmaker or someone who might be inclined to go easy on his peers for the sake of peacekeeping. Between that and his wit, we could be in for an actually funny Oscars night.

 

Of his appointment as host, Conan said: “America demanded it and now it’s happening: Taco Bell’s new Cheesy Chalupa Supreme. In other news, I’m hosting the Oscars.”

I’m not going to lie, I love this. I mean, I assume hosting a podcast got boring and Conan is looking for a new challenge—the best thing about him, as a performer, is that he has never rested on his laurels, he keeps pushing his craft—and I had a kneejerk moment of “why?” when I saw the headline, because it’s not like Conan needs this. Except for that thing about constantly pushing himself to try new things and evolve his show, and in the grand unifying theory of Conan, the Oscars are now HIS show. 

 

One of the reasons Conan survived so long as a late-night host is that whatever Conan does becomes A Conan Thing. Sketches for SNL, such as “Girl Watchers” are so strongly in his voice you can very easily see Conan himself performing the sketch. Tom Hanks understood this and his performance in “Girl Watchers” always seemed molded to Conan.

 

 

His episodes of The Simpsons, like “Marge vs. the Monorail”, also carry in his voice, and Lyle Lanley, voiced by Phil Hartman, again seems like a character Conan could have easily portrayed himself. And then he became a late-night host, the perfect job for his myriad talents, and he did that for thirty years across two networks and was perennially popular regardless of era or format. Everything Conan does becomes A Conan Thing. He does not submit to the expectations and standards of other things, he makes those things his, bringing them up to HIS standards and expectations. The Oscars are a dusty ass institution, and I cannot WAIT to see how he envisions the show in his voice, his style. I am seated for The Conan Oscars.

Let us know what you think of Conan as Oscars host at The Squawk. 

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