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As one of the 18-30 crowd that Oscar was desperately trying to get to watch this year with it's pick of Stewart, I can say they succeeded. I haven't had an Oscar party in years, but this time we all gathered around to see what Stewart and his Daily Show writing crew would produce. We were not disappointed.
Cintra, I have to ask, do you know anything about comedy? Do you know anything about Stewart's comedy? Yes, he bombed several times - and HE LOVES BOMBING! It's part of his routine on the Daily Show - if a joke hits, it makes a laugh and its gone, if it bombs, he has the chance to pull himself up and make more jokes and self-depreciating comments.
Oscar this year set up a tension between ratings and their theme 'a return to glamor;' they wanted the kids and they wanted to protect themselves, so it ended up being weird...and often funny. The opening montage of past hosts was great and a tad creepy (Letterman with Steve Martin's kids), Stiller making a fool of himself and loving it in the leotard, and even the stupid little animation segment procaiming an end to pants ended up being funny.
The bad has been mentioned - audience members who were too afraid/uptight to laugh and get into it, the orch playing people off even as they stepped up to the mic, and the multitude of montages - usually I love them, but they were terrible this year. A salute to noir?..um, ok, but use better clips please. Jon had it right when he said they ran out of clips.
All in all, a fun Oscar night - hope they ask Stewart back.
