What can Conan O’Brien learn from past Oscars hosts?

• Conan O’Brien will host the 97th Oscars on Sunday, March 2. This will be his first time as Academy Awards host.
• O’Brien joins a list of several late-night talk show hosts who have overseen the Oscars ceremony. Notable names like Johnny Carson, David Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel have each left their mark on the show.
• Jason Lynch, the curator for The Paley Center for Media, says that while the Oscars celebrate movies, the show is one of the biggest nights for television. Lynch says the host plays a big role in keeping the event entertaining.

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We don’t yet know what movie will win the award for Best Picture at the 97^th Oscars on Sunday, March 2, but we do know who the host will be: Conan O’Brien.

The former “Late Night” host has overseen other big events like the Emmys and the White House Correspondents Dinner, but never the Oscars.

The Oscars, or the Academy Awards ceremony, is known as movies’ biggest night, but it has also become one of the most important nights for television, and, minus one recent outlier, the show regularly ranks as one of the top broadcasts in viewers each year.

“So while it may not be the most watched entertainment program every year, it’s still very high on the list. The Oscars still does have this reputation and this cache of being one of the biggest TV shows every year,” Jason Lynch, the curator of The Paley Center for Media, told Straight Arrow News.

How important is an Oscars host?

Lynch said that as O’Brien prepares to entertain the Dolby Theater crowd and the millions at home, he is taking on a lot of responsibility as Oscar host.

“That’s not the important job of a host — to bring an audience in. What the important job is is to keep them there, to keep them entertained while the show is going on,” Lynch said. “To keep them from tuning out, which could certainly happen if they don’t like the movies that are winning or the acceptance speeches.”

The host is one of the most integral parts of the show. And while some years have seen two or three hosts, others have had none. In 1989, Tom Selleck specifically addressed the absence of a host.

“But I’m not your host, obviously. In the past years, there have been hosts. If Bob Hope or Johnny Carson or Chevy Chase were out here right now, you’d be laughing uncontrollably,” Selleck said.

But a hostless Oscars is not the norm. There usually is a host, like O’Brien, whose role involves being ready to react to anything. And let’s face it, based on decades of history, anything can happen during a live Oscars broadcast, the good, the bad and the shocking.

You don’t have to go back too far to understand that.

Remember these unscripted Oscars moments?

In 2022, Will Smith’s slap of presenter Chris Rock overshadowed the rest of the show.

In another unscripted moment — one that garnered rounds and rounds of applause — Charlie Chaplin received a 12-minute standing ovation during the 1972 Oscars.

A year later, Sacheen Littlefeather stepped onto the Oscar stage. She accepted, or rather did not accept, the Best Actor award on behalf of Marlon Brando.

“He very regretfully cannot accept this very generous award,” Littlefeather said.

A year after, the 1974 Oscars saw a streaker surprise host David Nivens. And, like any good Oscar host, he was quick with a quip.

“But isn’t it fascinating that probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and showing his shortcomings?” Nivens said to a hysterical audience.

I personally think [Oscar host] is the hardest and potentially most thankless job in showbiz. But it’s also an incredibly important one.

Jason Lynch, curator of The Paley Center for Media

Why are late-night TV hosts picked to be Oscar hosts?

O’Brien is certainly not the first late-night talk show host to lead the Oscars. Lynch said there’s a good reason these types of entertainers keep getting asked time and again.

“The attributes that make a successful Oscar host, there’s a lot of overlap that make a successful talk show host.” Lynch said. “Because you do need to simultaneously, if you’re a talk show host, put the celebs on your couch, the studio audience and the audience at home at ease. Those are three totally distinct groups to satisfy.”

Lynch said the Oscars need a talented host to help guide viewers through if, or more likely when, things go awry.

In 2017, during Jimmy Kimmel’s first hosting gig, he found out you can’t plan for everything, as Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty declared the incorrect winner of Best Picture.

“This is very unfortunate, what happened. Personally, I blame Steve Harvey for this,” Kimmel quickly remarked, referencing a 2015 Miss Universe hosting gaffe.

Kimmel then turned to Beatty, saying what most viewers were thinking, “Warren, what did you do?”

Lynch said Kimmel delivered as host when he was needed most.

“We can talk all we want about how good his monologue is going to be, the taped packages, but it’s that ability off the cuff to be able to talk about, comment on things that have happened, whether they were comedic or serious or scary, that’s another key element to the host arsenal that they need to have,” Lynch said.

Kimmel, who’s been known to lean heavily on political topics during his late-night monologues, has not hesitated to make politics a part of his Oscar routines. Whether it was tweeting at President Donald Trump in 2017 or reading Trump’s social media critique of Kimmel moments after it was posted last year.

O’Brien has reached out to Kimmel and his wife, Molly, who has twice been the executive producer of the awards show. Lynch, however, points out that O’Brien and Kimmel have different comedic approaches.

“The thing about Conan’s humor, really from when his show started in 1993, his humor is less topical and more just generally absurd,” Lynch said. “And that’s one reason why the classic Conan clips still play so well now, because they are not rooted to a specific political moment that just happened.”

Earlier this week, O’Brien was a guest on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Kimmel revealed some of the hosting advice he shared.

“I would not give you tips on jokes or anything of that stuff. I would never do anything like that,” Kimmel said. “But I did have some like kind of old man tips, like try to sit down during the show, which is one of my tips.”

“Jimmy is obsessed with sitting down as much as possible,” O’Brien responded. “And his tips kept going back to ‘Try and sit down; if you can do the joke sitting down, do them sitting down.’ What are you — Franklin Roosevelt?”

O’Brien told People magazine he watched Johnny Carson host the show when he was a kid. Carson hosted five times and looked for a joke wherever he could find it, including, similar to O’Brien’s style, at his own expense.

“My personal life has been exactly like this year’s Academy Awards,” Carson told the crowd in 1984. “It started off with ‘Terms of Endearment.’ I thought I had the ‘Right Stuff.’ It cost a lot to dress her (‘Dresser’), then came ‘The Big Chill.’ In the past month, I’ve been begging for ‘Tender Mercies.’”

The Oscars, for better or worse, how you do in that one ceremony can define you for decades afterward.

Jason Lynch, curator of The Paley Center for Media

When “The Late Show’s” David Letterman took the stage for the 67th Oscars in 1995, he did not know he was about to participate in what he would eventually tell the Hollywood Reporter was the “single biggest professional embarrassment” of his life.

During his monologue, Letterman joked about the unusual celebrity names in attendance, introducing Oprah Winfrey and Uma Thurman.

“Oprah. Uma. Uma. Oprah.”

The Atlantic called it the “gold standard of Oscar bombing,” and Time magazine labeled Letterman the worst awards show host ever.

Lynch explained, “The Oscars are different in that when you’re doing a late-night show, you’re doing hundreds of episodes a year, so every minute, every joke is not dissected and scrutinized the way that it is as Oscars host, and that could be crushing for people because — to live and die by every single joke.

“Conan would always say, ‘When I was hosting ‘Late Night,’ if I had a great show, if I had a terrible show, I knew I had a show the next day; basically, you start with a clean slate. The Oscars, for better or worse, how you do in that one ceremony can define you for decades afterward.”

Will Conan have a viral hosting moment?

Sometimes an Oscar host gets lucky, and a planned skit works out, even beyond expectations.

Ellen DeGeneres had such luck with her 2014 selfie with celebrities including Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Brad Pitt and Meryl Streep, going viral on Twitter, now X.

O’Brien humorously told ABC News he has the viral aspect of the Oscars covered.

“I’m paying people to create moments. I’m going to have a lot of fake moments that I can react to, and people can say, ‘Wow, Conan’s a genius. How did he see that coming?’ And then later on, I’m giving Tom Hanks $300 in the parking lot,” O’Brien joked.

Will the Oscars address the California wildfires?

While the Oscars bring plenty of laughs, the show usually takes time to acknowledge the outside world, no matter how serious the situation.

Try to respect the moment and try to do my job, which is to meet the moment, be appropriate and I hope elevate in some way.

Conan O’Brien

In 1991, with a sprinkle of humor, perennial host Billy Crystal reflected on the end of the Gulf War.

“Let’s put this all in perspective,” Crystal said. “It really doesn’t matter who wins, because no matter who wins Saddam Hussein will claim he did. But I think all of us feel that we are very thankful that there are no Americans tonight fighting anywhere, except at Paramount.”

In 2002, just months after the 9/11 attacks, it was not the host, but actor Tom Cruise, who opened the show, addressing the juxtaposition of honoring Hollywood entertainment after the deadly acts of terror.

“Last September came an event that would change us. An actor friend said to me, ‘What are we doing? What are we doing? Is it important? Is it even important what I do?’” Cruise said. “What about a night like tonight? Should we celebrate the joy and magic the movies bring? Well, dare I say it: more than ever.”

For this year’s broadcast, O’Brien said the Oscars, which take place in Los Angeles, will find the right tone as Southern California continues to recover from recent wildfires; the same fires that forced O’Brien and many others from their homes.

“I think I can read a room, and when I say read a room, I don’t just mean, it can’t be just that room; it needs to be the larger room of people watching in the United States,” O’Brien told ABC’s “On The Red Carpet.” “Try to respect the moment and try to do my job, which is to meet the moment, be appropriate and I hope elevate in some way.”

During Bob Hope’s 19 stints, the legendary actor and comedian used the role of host to find that right mix of compassion, levity and brevity. Along the way, he made TV history, being the one to host the first televised Oscars ceremony in 1953.

“Isn’t it exciting to know that a lot of these glamorous stars are going to be in your home tonight?” Hope said. “All over America, housewives are turning to their husbands and saying, ‘Put on your shirt, Joan Crawford is coming.’”

How long will the Oscars run?

One thing O’Brien is likely to mention is the timing.

“The biggest criticism against the ceremony is that it just goes on too long,” Lynch said.

It is a point of contention that hosts bring up time and time again.

“As you know, this program has a history in the past of running a tad too long, but this year our producer Howard Cotch assured me that his program tonight is going to be fast-paced and will end exactly on schedule,” Carson said during his 1980 monologue. “But I wouldn’t go by Howard. Last month he bought a summer home on Washington’s Mount St. Helens, so his timing may be a little suspect.”

For context, the volcano erupted weeks earlier.

In 1986, hosts Jane Fonda and Alan Alda joked about the show’s troublesome running time.

“Another year, another night,” Fonda said.

“With the fervent hope the night doesn’t take another year,” Alda remarked.

Just last year, even with an earlier starting time, Kimmel warned the audience.

“The show is starting an hour early this year, but don’t worry, it will still end very, very late,” Kimmel said early in his monologue. “In fact, we’re already five minutes over, and I am not joking.”

Will Conan O’Brien seize his moment in the Oscars spotlight?

So, taking into account all of the Oscars’ grand history, past host performances and current affairs, it’s O’Brien’s turn to craft the ceremony his way.

“It’s a tricky show. It’s a tricky time. I’m going to give it my best shot, and if it doesn’t work out, you will never see me again. You will never see me again, and that’s something America can look forward to,” O’Brien told ABC News.

All jokes aside, which is not totally doable when talking about the head of Team Coco, Lynch said O’Brien has a very good chance at succeeding on the night of Sunday.

“I personally think [Oscars host] is the hardest and potentially most thankless job in showbiz. But it’s also an incredibly important one because, again, you do need that skilled guide through one of the biggest entertainment programs every year.” Lynch said.

“Think about it. Best-case scenario for an Oscar host is that you do well enough that they ask you back the following year, where you can go through this entire gauntlet again — and again risk bombing.

“There is so much room for error, and there are only a few people who can get through that expertly, and I do think Conan certainly has the potential to be one of them.”

The 97th Oscars, hosted by Conan O’Brien, will air live on ABC and stream live on Hulu at 7 p.m. Eastern Time on Sunday, March 2.