The 10 Worst Oscars Hosts of All Time
By April Jones
No Host
In 1989, the Academy decided not to hire anyone to host the Oscars. Instead, they opted to put on several musical numbers in an effort to keep the viewing audience entertained. Now this wasn’t the first time that the Oscars had gone on without an official host. In the early 70s, the awards ceremony went three consecutive years unhosted. But it was the 61st Academy Awards, held in 1989, that turned out to be the most bizarre.
If you’re too young to remember that particular event, consider yourself lucky. Those of you who were around back then, you may remember it as the year that Rob Lowe performed with Snow White, played by Eileen Bowman. It was a very weird time. Drew Barrymore was dating Corey Feldman, Demi and Bruce were practically newlyweds, and Melanie Griffith still had an acting career. Foregoing a host for the Oscars must have seemed normal at the time.
One of the weirdest moments of the evening, aside from the Rob Lowe/Snow White thing, was a musical number called “I Wanna Be an Oscar Winner.” It was introduced by Bob Hope and Lucille Ball who were introduced by Walter Matthau. Featured among the performers, dubbed “the stars of tomorrow,” were Keith Coogan, Tracy Nelson, Joely Fisher, Ricki Lake, Patrick Dempsey, Corey Feldman, Christian Slater, Holly Robinson, and Blair Underwood.
The evening was such a disaster that several members of the Academy wrote an open letter in which they called it “an embarrassment to both the Academy and the entire motion picture industry.”