To make a ranking of worst anything of all time is a fool’s errand, a Pandora’s Box of discourse that everyone of every age wants to participate in. But with awards season now in full swing—and masters of ceremonies already falling on their faces—it’s high time to revisit an age-old conversation: Who were the worst award show hosts ever?
From the Emmys and the Oscars to the Golden Globes ceremony that aired just last week, we’ve plucked nine picks for our unranked, far-from-definitive list of bad awards show hosts. We cannot promise that you’ll agree—or that there are even worse hosts that didn’t make the cut. But these dudes (and one woman) were either inarguably bad at their jobs or extremely bizarre hosting hires. (In one case, the host was such a bad pick, he didn’t even get to host!)
There’s no easily accessible archival video footage of Donald Duck hosting the 1958 Oscars (this promo photo does exist)—apparently, that’s something the Academy doesn’t want us to see. Mr. Duck hosted alongside an array of other big names like Bob Hope and James Stewart. Couldn’t he let them take the spotlight instead? Really, there was no need for an animated duck to share the limelight with such stars. This one is a little more obscure in comparison to the rest of the group, but hey, we couldn’t help but mention how odd it is.
It’s hard to remember a time when Chevy Chase wasn’t reviled for being an obnoxious, self-absorbed jackass. But back in the ’70s and ’80s, he was riding high off his Saturday Night Live fame and a genuine box office star. One could argue he was unsinkable. (Well, for the most part.) His first time (co-)hosting the Oscars, in 1987, went fine. His second time? The pompous Chase we know and hate today came out in full-force as he took the stage alone, delivering constant, bad one-liners and putting off the audience by calling them “phonies.” Takes one to know one!
“Oprah, Uma. Uma, Oprah.” With these two sentences, Letterman proved that an all-time great talk show host does not make for a great, let alone good, awards emcee. Making fun of icons Uma Thurman and Oprah Winfrey’s names is bad. Having no real punchline—for that joke or the majority of the others he told—is unforgivable. At least the former Late Night host is self-aware: In 2020, he referred to the debacle as “an explosion of excrement.”
The Emmys ripped straight from its own program in 2008, tapping a handful of nominees to host the 60th annual awards. Everyone nominated in the Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program was asked to host the ceremony, meaning Tom Bergeron, Heidi Klum, Howie Mandel, Jeff Probst, and Ryan Seacrest had to band together in one…interesting...host concoction. Too many cooks in the reality kitchen! Do you think things got awkward backstage when Probst took home the Best Host award and had to face down his co-stars/competitors?
We’re just calling out alleged sex pest James Franco here, and not his co-host, Anne Hathaway, who did her darndest to save this immediate disaster. This mismatched pair was doomed from the get-go, with Hathaway’s high energy clashing with Franco’s wildly non-existent charisma. No matter what the writers behind that tepid monologue say, Franco looked high off his rocker. That’s fun if we’re watching the beloved Pineapple Express. But sitting through a molasses-slow series of terrible jokes delivered by someone who is mentally somewhere else is the opposite of fun. No wonder he disappeared from the back half of the show—and, eventually, Hollywood (albeit for totally unrelated reasons).
If you’ve been personally victimized by Seth MacFarlane, raise your hand. Awesome—that means you’re an awards-caliber actress, and we appreciate your readership! MacFarlane took aim at myriad women during his Oscars monologue with “We Saw Your Boobs,” a number so ridiculously offensive that it’s kind of shocking that it ever made it to air in the first place. Every single part of this number, in which MacFarlane calls out actresses who took their tops off on-screen, has aged badly. That’s not to say it ever worked at all, based on the audience’s uncomfortable chuckles. But hey, for good measure, he ended the tune with … a gay joke.
On top of all that, MacFarlane also found time to play with sock puppets, don a costume that likely came from a KKK member’s closet, and sexually harass National Treasure Sally Field. This might actually be the worst monologue ever.
Colin Jost and Michael Che are reliable, if polarizing and/or controversial, co-hosts of SNL’s Weekend Update. But their chemistry at the desk didn’t follow them to the Emmys stage when they hosted in 2018. First, Jost and Che suggested in pre-interviews that they weren’t all that jazzed about the job in the first place—totally fair, but not a great look even so. But once they actually made it on stage, they not only didn’t seem excited to be there; they seemed actively bored. That they were two guys hosting the first Emmys since the reckoning of #MeToo—and who had also come under fire for their politically incorrect jokes in recent years—didn’t help matters with critics, who dragged the guys for their apolitical, “sluggish” stage work.
Kevin Hart was so unfit as a host that he actually didn’t host the Oscars. But we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention this fiasco, which really summarized the 2019 Oscar season—Green Book won, if you’ll recall—to a tee. Hart was initially tapped for the gig in late 2018, but soon after, old homophobic tweets he made recirculated on the internet. Soon after, Hart resigned as the host as he did “not want to be a distraction on a night that should be celebrated by so many amazing talented artists.” The 2019 Oscars went on without a host. Hart may not be the worst host on this list—because he never actually hosted—but he’s certainly one of the worst choices as host.
Comic Jo Koy has been subjected to plenty of criticism this year thanks to his recent bomb of a monologue at the Golden Globes. We’ll spare him a bit, here—we only have an issue with one big line (although the Barbie jokes were pretty stale and misogynistic, too). The worst part of Koy’s monologue by far was when he blamed the other writers who worked on the speech for the bad jokes: “I wrote some of these and they’re the ones that you’re laughing at.” Dude, you’re probably making way more money than any of those other script writers behind the scenes! Don’t blame them for your poor performance. This little line was the opposite of classy, and it’s why Koy made the list.
The Worst Award Show Hosts of All Time
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15.01.2024
To make a ranking of worst anything of all time is a fool’s errand, a Pandora’s Box of discourse that everyone of every age wants to participate in. But with awards season now in full swing—and masters of ceremonies already falling on their faces—it’s high time to revisit an age-old conversation: Who were the worst award show hosts ever?
From the Emmys and the Oscars to the Golden Globes ceremony that aired just last week, we’ve plucked nine picks for our unranked, far-from-definitive list of bad awards show hosts. We cannot promise that you’ll agree—or that there are even worse hosts that didn’t make the cut. But these dudes (and one woman) were either inarguably bad at their jobs or extremely bizarre hosting hires. (In one case, the host was such a bad pick, he didn’t even get to host!)
There’s no easily accessible archival video footage of Donald Duck hosting the 1958 Oscars (this promo photo does exist)—apparently, that’s something the Academy doesn’t want us to see. Mr. Duck hosted alongside an array of other big names like Bob Hope and James Stewart. Couldn’t he let them take the spotlight instead? Really, there was no need for an animated duck to share the limelight with such stars. This one is a little more obscure in comparison to the rest of the group, but hey, we couldn’t help but mention how odd it is.
It’s hard to remember a time when Chevy Chase wasn’t reviled for being an obnoxious, self-absorbed jackass. But back in the ’70s and ’80s, he was riding high off his Saturday Night Live fame and a genuine box office star. One could argue he was unsinkable. (Well, for the most part.) His first time........
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