The One Oscar Joke That Conan O’Brien Wasn’t Allowed to Make
Conan O’Brien’s performance as host of the 97th Academy Awards certainly didn’t feel as though it had been reined in at all, hence why he was able to make a joke about Drake being a pedophile midway through the ceremony, and kicked off his monologue by emerging from a gaping wound in Demi Moore’s back, à la The Substance.
But it turns out that the Academy stepped in to nix one of the comedian’s jokes – not because it was potentially offensive to any actual human beings, but because they believed it might sully the dignity of Oscar himself.
On a recent episode of the Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast, Conan recapped his experiences at the high-profile gig. And while he was quick to thank everyone involved in the production for their collaborative generosity, he did reveal that the Academy brass voiced concerns during the production of a promotional video involving Conan and a giant Oscar statuette.
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The short cast Conan and Oscar as a bickering married couple living in the suburbs – well, technically Conan did all the bickering, since Oscar was silent and immobile.
“The real behind-the-scenes education was (that) the Academy of Motion Pictures, they’re very serious about certain things,” Conan explained, adding that “the image of Oscar is very important to them.”
Originally, Conan wanted to include a joke in which Oscar was reclining while Conan did all the housework. “At one point I thought, ‘Oh, this would be really great if the Oscar was 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?’” O’Brien said.
After noticing that there was “whispering” in the room, “one of the people from the Academy came forward and said, ‘Oscar can never be horizontal,’” Conan recalled. “And that blew my mind. Like, wow, this is like the thigh bone of St. Peter. This is a religious icon.”
Conan’s head writer Mike Sweeney pointed out that the Academy had another proviso for using Oscar in the sketch. “We tried to put an apron (on it) when it was serving you leftovers,” Sweeney noted. “And they were like, ‘No clothing on Oscar. Oscar is always naked.’”
“There's a lot of rules with Oscar. And then you realize, ‘Oh, this award ceremony has been around since 1929,’” Conan reasoned, stressing that the Academy and the network were otherwise incredibly helpful, and the producers would “make anything happen.”
It’s a little surprising that the Academy wouldn’t allow Conan’s team to place a giant fake Oscar on a sofa, but they were cool with the premise that this perpetually-nude nonagenarian has been sexting with a co-worker named “Linda.”
