The 10 Worst Oscars Hosts of All Time
By April Jones
David Letterman
There’s no denying that David Letterman is funny. The man spent four decades hosting late night TV talk shows, surpassing his mentor Johnny Carson with a record number of episodes of Late Night and Late Show. Unfortunately, his dry sense of humor plays out better in New York than it does in Hollywood.
Inviting Letterman to host the Oscars appeared to be something like a consolation prize after he was passed over to replace the retiring Carson as host of The Tonight Show. It seemed like a given that Letterman would be picked, but the job went to Jay Leno instead. So if Letterman wasn’t going to get Carson’s old job as talk show host, then give him Carson’s old job of hosting the Oscars. (Johnny Carson had hosted the event five times during his lifetime.) Sadly, most people ended up hating it.
For starters, he made a joke about Oprah Winfrey and Uma Thurman getting together solely based on the fact that they both have odd names. And he mocked Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, a couple at the time, for their activism. Letterman came across as laughing at the stars instead of with them. That may work well for Late Night but it didn’t work for the Oscars.