The Duke (Silver) Abides
For everyone watching along at home, Parks and Recreation favorite Nick Offerman was heard, but not seen, in his debut as the official announcer of the 97th Oscars. But those of us in the room got to see and hear him prior to the show going live on ABC and Hulu for the first time. Ahead of the Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo mini-concert that opened the show, Offerman took the stage and delivered a tight five minutes of warm-up patter and semi-stern advice to the winners.
“I’m here to deliver to you a grave warming: Please keep your speeches short,” he remarked. “There is no need to thank your agents, publicists, studio execs.” (Naturally, Offerman’s words went unheeded by most of the winners.)
Perhaps because the cameras weren’t rolling, Offerman also allowed himself to indulge in more overtly political humor than host Conan O’Brien would in his monologue. “Pursuant to a new executive order, you are required to explicitly thank commerce secretary Howard Lutnick,” he joked, referring to the Trump cabinet member. (Funnily enough, I saw Lutnick verbally wrestle with Triumph the Insult Comic Dog ahead of the election last fall.)
Offerman also fired a few shots at some closer-to-Hollywood targets. For example, he noted that it’s totally acceptable for newfound Oscar winners to drunk-text others about wanting to play an Avenger. “A real Avenger this time, not Hawkeye,” he added, eliciting scattered groans from fans of Jeremy Renner’s arrow-slinging hero.
Those groans continued when Offerman advised winners to skip the hugs and get up to the stage. “The longer that you take sharing hugs, whether consensual—or with Kevin Spacey—the less time we’re going to have.”
Yeah… it’s probably safe to say that O’Brien doesn’t have to worry about Offerman coming for his job next year.
Seated for streaming
Speaking of Conan, the late night host-turned-digital media empire-builder rocked the Dolby with a fake ad for a new way to stream movies—in a magical place known to Nicole Kidman and the rest of us as… a movie theater.
O’Brien called his brilliant invention CinemaStreams, but his working title could have been Not-Netflix. While the streaming giant was the most-nominated studio of the night with 18 nods, its ongoing resistance to embracing a standard theatrical distribution schedule has made it something of a controversial outlier in the industry. The host also teased Netflix in his monologue, noting that it led the competition with “18 price increases.”