All Hail Conan, The King Of Weird
Cynthia Erivos show-stopping (show-starting?)
performance of Defying Gravity (with a little help from Ariana Grande).
Kieran Culkins charming, motor-mouthed acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actor.
All of this was great.
Superman and Mission: Impossible will be fine.
I’m not so sure.
But the biggest factor elevating the show?
It started at the very beginning as Conan did the thing where he superimposed himself into one of themovies.
Of course, he lost his shoe, and had to stick his arm back in to retrieve it.
There were two big elephants in the room, and Conan deftly herded both.
By a bunch you might think I mean like five or six.
But no, there were dozens.
ViaConan O’Brien.
And by old, you might think I mean from over a decade ago.
But no, some were from the early 2020s.
“Little fact for ya, Anora uses the F-word 479 times,” he said.
“That’s three more than the record set by Karla Sofia Gascon’s publicist.”
Then, he acted out the publicist with a classically Conan-y shriek.
“‘You tweeted what!'”
“Karla Sofia Gascon is here tonight.
He did so, up top, arguing for the importance of film in trying times.
These are heroes!”
“And I’m talking about the producers of Joker 2.”
Especially since the last joke in this segment had one of the firefighters taking aim at Conan.
“It’s great to be back with Conan,” said LAFD Fire Captain Jodi Slicker.
“Usually when he calls… he’s stuck in a tree.”
Electric Absurdity
And, there was the classic Conan absurdity.
Each year, the Oscars try and fail to cut the show down to under three hours.
Doing a time-wasting music number about how he wasn’t going to waste time.
The sandworm from Dune: Part Two even played along in the orchestra.
Conan was a breath of fresh air.
You know that, whatever happens, he’s a steady hand wholl guide the show to its conclusion.
That’s good, but he’s also pretty vanilla.
Conan’s bizarre energy gave the show the electricity it needed.
Adrien Brody’s performance is a computer-aided turn.
