Top 10 Worst Awards-Show Hosts. As the reviews of James Franco and Anne Hathaway's turn as Oscar hosts stream in, TIME takes a look at some of the more dubious hosting jobs in awards-show history.
David Letterman, 1994 Oscars
David Letterman's sense of humor is so dry that it borders on the acerbic. Letterman's hosting gig at the 67th Academy Awards has become somewhat legendary, a marker by which Oscar hosts now rate themselves. He opened with the infamously unfunny "Oprah, Uma" joke, in which he attempted to introduce Oprah Winfrey and Uma Thurman to each other simply because they both have unique first names. And when politically active couple Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins walked onstage to present an award, Letterman quipped, "Pay attention, I'm sure they're pissed off about something." Hollywood was unamused. No wonder he's never been asked back.
Reality-Show Hosts, 2008 Emmys
On paper, it seemed like a fine idea: have the five people nominated for the inaugural Best Reality Host Emmy emcee the annual event. The idea flopped miserably. Tom Bergeron (Dancing with the Stars), Heidi Klum (Project Runway), Jeff Probst (Survivor), Ryan Seacrest (American Idol) and Howie Mandel (Deal or No Deal) decided to go unscripted for the show's opening, perhaps in a nod to their respective shows. But their banter was so boring and awkward, audiences weren't even sure when to offer a courtesy laugh. The night wasn't a total bust for Probst, though. He took home the Best Reality Host statue that night.
Chelsea Handler, 2010 MTV Video Music Awards
In her opening monologue at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards, Chelsea Handler said she hadn't sipped alcohol for a whole week to prepare for her hosting duties. Well, she could have fooled us. The comedienne rambled — yelled, really — through her crass opening remarks like a belligerent drunk, making fun of everyone from Kanye West to Justin Bieber's mom. Misery loves company, which might have been why Handler called on the crowd to be on their worst behavior, telling them she wanted a tongue "shoved some place it's not supposed to be." Critics from the nation's biggest papers blasted Handler's tackiness and "off-color racial humor," but audiences didn't seem to mind. The loose-lipped host brought in 11.4 million viewers that evening, making it MTV's third most watched VMAs.
Jerry Lewis, 1959 Oscars
As it turns out, the third time isn't always a charm. Funnyman Jerry Lewis had hosted the Academy Awards twice before he took on the 1959 show, along with Bob Hope, David Niven, Sir Laurence Olivier, Tony Randall and Mort Sahl. Remarkably, despite a plethora of hosts the broadcast was actually 20 minutes too short: the finale, with stars singing "There's No Business Like Show Business," came too soon. Lewis tried valiantly to fill the remaining airtime, but, notes TIME's Richard Corliss, "Until Nixon's 18½, Lewis' 20 were the minutes that lived in pop-culture infamy. Catastrophe would be one way to describe it. Another would be great live television — the spectacle of tuxedoed Hollywood pratfalling into humiliation, and handing the banana peel of blame to the one man who tried to keep the viewers entertained." No business like show business, indeed.
James Franco, 2011 Oscars
Whoever asked James Franco and Anne Hathaway to host the 83rd Annual Academy Awards, which aired Feb. 27 to low ratings, must regret it now. At least the overly perky Hathaway tried to sing and dance her way into the audience's hearts (though with little success). Franco, on the other hand, was one big ball of awkwardness. He stood awkwardly, read from the teleprompter awkwardly and even dressed in drag awkwardly. "You know what? If it's the worst Oscars show ever, who cares?" Franco told Vanity Fair earlier in the month. "It's fine, it's like one night. So, it doesn't matter."
Franco has been everywhere recently — he's pursuing a Ph.D. at Yale University, writing and publishing fiction and even appearing on General Hospital — but maybe, with the 2011 Oscars, people have finally had enough. They are Franco-ed out. So how bad was he? Let's put it this way: Franco's offstage tweets were more interesting than the actual ceremony.
No Hosts
Because awards-show hosts can be so hit or miss, the no-host program has occasionally been adopted in attempts to streamline running time and take the pressure off one person carrying an entire telecast. The Oscars have been no-hosted seven times, but not since the 1989 program which began with a now infamous routine starring Rob Lowe and Snow White (video of which has been virtually expunged from the Internet by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences). Other shows including the Country Music Awards, MTV Video Music Awards and the Primetime Emmys have used the no-host format, but to little fanfare. A hostless program usually means way too many presenters, 75% of whom are unprepared, boring or just not funny — not to mention an inconsistent program that's incapable of achieving a unified tone. The one awards telecast that seems to fare well as a no-host show is the one presented by the Screen Actors Guild. The SAG Awards are repeatedly one of the top-rated awards shows, but it's difficult to tell if that's simply because the show is just about actors (no technical awards to slog through), thereby giving the audience more of a chance to ogle Hollywood's finest instead of Joe Schmoe Sound Mixer.
Bryant Gumbel, 1997 Emmys
The president of CBS Entertainment, Leslie Moonves, didn't want a comedian for the 1997 Emmy Awards. He wanted Bryant Gumbel, who had just left NBC after 15 years to join his network. But it was a strange move, considering most hosts are recruited for their joke-delivering chops. In the months before the show, the newscaster promised to play it straight, and that he did. Gumbel didn't engage in any fancy dance numbers or a meaty monologue full of one-liners. In fact, you could say that Gumbel's hosting duties went off without a hitch. But that's because in order for there to be a hitch, there has to be some sort of movement. Gumbel played it right down the middle.
Donald Duck, 1958 Oscars
We love classic cartoons as much as the next kid disguised as a grownup, but given the star power of the glittering 1950s, Donald Duck probably didn't need to co-host the 30th Academy Awards. Bob Hope, Jack Lemmon, David Niven, Rosalind Russell and James Stewart also ran the 1958 show. Donald appeared on film rather than, as is preferable for most hosts, in person. Still, he wasn't completely out of his element: 15 years earlier, his short Der Fuehrer's Face won an Oscar.
Chris Rock, 2005 Oscars
Some people (namely Sean Penn) didn't think Chris Rock's turn as Oscar host in 2005 was funny. After Rock dissed Jude Law's acting skills, Penn chastised the host, calling Law, who he was filming All the King's Men with, one of the industry's "finest actors." Some other folk were alarmed by Rock's command that the audience sit their ass down, after they gave him a standing ovation. But the joke just seemed like Rock being himself, dishing out the acerbic, high-pitched humor that led to his hosting the show in the first place. His opening monologue roused plenty of laughter and applause from the audience, which leads one to believe that the critical drubbing may just have been the result of reviewers looking for something to complain about.
Angela Lansbury, 1993 Emmys
She had hosted the Tony Awards many a time, and by the early '90s had been nominated for an Emmy more than a dozen times, most of those for her work on Murder, She Wrote. So it seemed a natural fit for Angela Lansbury to take over hosting duties for prime-time television's biggest night. But coming off two years of hosting (or co-hosting) by comedian Dennis Miller, Lansbury struck a too-traditional tone, and almost every Emmy ceremony since has gone the route of having a comedian as host.[]
Source Top 10 Worst Awards-Show Hosts : www.time.com
David Letterman, 1994 Oscars
David Letterman's sense of humor is so dry that it borders on the acerbic. Letterman's hosting gig at the 67th Academy Awards has become somewhat legendary, a marker by which Oscar hosts now rate themselves. He opened with the infamously unfunny "Oprah, Uma" joke, in which he attempted to introduce Oprah Winfrey and Uma Thurman to each other simply because they both have unique first names. And when politically active couple Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins walked onstage to present an award, Letterman quipped, "Pay attention, I'm sure they're pissed off about something." Hollywood was unamused. No wonder he's never been asked back.
Reality-Show Hosts, 2008 Emmys
On paper, it seemed like a fine idea: have the five people nominated for the inaugural Best Reality Host Emmy emcee the annual event. The idea flopped miserably. Tom Bergeron (Dancing with the Stars), Heidi Klum (Project Runway), Jeff Probst (Survivor), Ryan Seacrest (American Idol) and Howie Mandel (Deal or No Deal) decided to go unscripted for the show's opening, perhaps in a nod to their respective shows. But their banter was so boring and awkward, audiences weren't even sure when to offer a courtesy laugh. The night wasn't a total bust for Probst, though. He took home the Best Reality Host statue that night.
Chelsea Handler, 2010 MTV Video Music Awards
In her opening monologue at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards, Chelsea Handler said she hadn't sipped alcohol for a whole week to prepare for her hosting duties. Well, she could have fooled us. The comedienne rambled — yelled, really — through her crass opening remarks like a belligerent drunk, making fun of everyone from Kanye West to Justin Bieber's mom. Misery loves company, which might have been why Handler called on the crowd to be on their worst behavior, telling them she wanted a tongue "shoved some place it's not supposed to be." Critics from the nation's biggest papers blasted Handler's tackiness and "off-color racial humor," but audiences didn't seem to mind. The loose-lipped host brought in 11.4 million viewers that evening, making it MTV's third most watched VMAs.
Jerry Lewis, 1959 Oscars
As it turns out, the third time isn't always a charm. Funnyman Jerry Lewis had hosted the Academy Awards twice before he took on the 1959 show, along with Bob Hope, David Niven, Sir Laurence Olivier, Tony Randall and Mort Sahl. Remarkably, despite a plethora of hosts the broadcast was actually 20 minutes too short: the finale, with stars singing "There's No Business Like Show Business," came too soon. Lewis tried valiantly to fill the remaining airtime, but, notes TIME's Richard Corliss, "Until Nixon's 18½, Lewis' 20 were the minutes that lived in pop-culture infamy. Catastrophe would be one way to describe it. Another would be great live television — the spectacle of tuxedoed Hollywood pratfalling into humiliation, and handing the banana peel of blame to the one man who tried to keep the viewers entertained." No business like show business, indeed.
James Franco, 2011 Oscars
Whoever asked James Franco and Anne Hathaway to host the 83rd Annual Academy Awards, which aired Feb. 27 to low ratings, must regret it now. At least the overly perky Hathaway tried to sing and dance her way into the audience's hearts (though with little success). Franco, on the other hand, was one big ball of awkwardness. He stood awkwardly, read from the teleprompter awkwardly and even dressed in drag awkwardly. "You know what? If it's the worst Oscars show ever, who cares?" Franco told Vanity Fair earlier in the month. "It's fine, it's like one night. So, it doesn't matter."
Franco has been everywhere recently — he's pursuing a Ph.D. at Yale University, writing and publishing fiction and even appearing on General Hospital — but maybe, with the 2011 Oscars, people have finally had enough. They are Franco-ed out. So how bad was he? Let's put it this way: Franco's offstage tweets were more interesting than the actual ceremony.
No Hosts
Because awards-show hosts can be so hit or miss, the no-host program has occasionally been adopted in attempts to streamline running time and take the pressure off one person carrying an entire telecast. The Oscars have been no-hosted seven times, but not since the 1989 program which began with a now infamous routine starring Rob Lowe and Snow White (video of which has been virtually expunged from the Internet by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences). Other shows including the Country Music Awards, MTV Video Music Awards and the Primetime Emmys have used the no-host format, but to little fanfare. A hostless program usually means way too many presenters, 75% of whom are unprepared, boring or just not funny — not to mention an inconsistent program that's incapable of achieving a unified tone. The one awards telecast that seems to fare well as a no-host show is the one presented by the Screen Actors Guild. The SAG Awards are repeatedly one of the top-rated awards shows, but it's difficult to tell if that's simply because the show is just about actors (no technical awards to slog through), thereby giving the audience more of a chance to ogle Hollywood's finest instead of Joe Schmoe Sound Mixer.
Bryant Gumbel, 1997 Emmys
The president of CBS Entertainment, Leslie Moonves, didn't want a comedian for the 1997 Emmy Awards. He wanted Bryant Gumbel, who had just left NBC after 15 years to join his network. But it was a strange move, considering most hosts are recruited for their joke-delivering chops. In the months before the show, the newscaster promised to play it straight, and that he did. Gumbel didn't engage in any fancy dance numbers or a meaty monologue full of one-liners. In fact, you could say that Gumbel's hosting duties went off without a hitch. But that's because in order for there to be a hitch, there has to be some sort of movement. Gumbel played it right down the middle.
Donald Duck, 1958 Oscars
We love classic cartoons as much as the next kid disguised as a grownup, but given the star power of the glittering 1950s, Donald Duck probably didn't need to co-host the 30th Academy Awards. Bob Hope, Jack Lemmon, David Niven, Rosalind Russell and James Stewart also ran the 1958 show. Donald appeared on film rather than, as is preferable for most hosts, in person. Still, he wasn't completely out of his element: 15 years earlier, his short Der Fuehrer's Face won an Oscar.
Chris Rock, 2005 Oscars
Some people (namely Sean Penn) didn't think Chris Rock's turn as Oscar host in 2005 was funny. After Rock dissed Jude Law's acting skills, Penn chastised the host, calling Law, who he was filming All the King's Men with, one of the industry's "finest actors." Some other folk were alarmed by Rock's command that the audience sit their ass down, after they gave him a standing ovation. But the joke just seemed like Rock being himself, dishing out the acerbic, high-pitched humor that led to his hosting the show in the first place. His opening monologue roused plenty of laughter and applause from the audience, which leads one to believe that the critical drubbing may just have been the result of reviewers looking for something to complain about.
Angela Lansbury, 1993 Emmys
She had hosted the Tony Awards many a time, and by the early '90s had been nominated for an Emmy more than a dozen times, most of those for her work on Murder, She Wrote. So it seemed a natural fit for Angela Lansbury to take over hosting duties for prime-time television's biggest night. But coming off two years of hosting (or co-hosting) by comedian Dennis Miller, Lansbury struck a too-traditional tone, and almost every Emmy ceremony since has gone the route of having a comedian as host.[]
Source Top 10 Worst Awards-Show Hosts : www.time.com
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