Sandra Oh and Andy Samberg exorcised the spirit of scorched-earth-school host Ricky Gervais from the Beverly Hilton ballroom Sunday, opening the Golden Globe Awards oozing unabashed suck-upp-ery with crowd-charming bait/switch jokes.
“If it isn’t Spike Lee!” Samberg kicked things off. “Mr. Do the Right Thing! Well, I’ll tell you who does the right thing! You! As a director. Lifetime fan – can’t wait to see what you do next!”
“Destroyed!” Oh raved. Then, turning her sights on Bradly Cooper, Oh sneered, “You are hot!”
“Damn! This is live on television!” Samberg reacted. “No take-backs!”
Multiple nominee Amy Adams, they dismissed as a “mega-talented piece of crap!”
Of this year’s Cecil B. DeMille Award winner Jeff Bridges, Samberg said, like he meant it to sting, “Hey Jeff! I wish you were my dad.”
It was another big year for director Ryan Coogler, the Brooklyn Nine-Nine star noted.
“You know, if you told me as a kid growing up in the Bay Area there would be a movie called Black Panther that starts off in Oakland, this is not what I would have imagined,” Samberg joked.
“Ryan, were there like a bunch of old members of the actual Black Panther Party saying ‘I can’t even get an audition!'” Samberg asked Coogler.
“Just kidding,” Samberg said. “They were all framed and murdered for wanting justice and equality – the world is, and always has been a nightmare, it just seems worse now because of our phones! What else happened this year?”
Oh brought the monologue to a close with a sudden mood switch.
Welling up, she told Globe attendees, “I said yes to far of being on this stage tonight because I wanted to be here to look out to this audience and witness this moment of change. I’m not fooling myself. Next year could be different probably will be but right now this moment is real,” she said as the camera panned the hall to illustrate the diversity in the ballroom.
“Trust me, it is real,” she said. “Because I see you – All these faces of change. And now so will everyone else.”
The monologue wasn’t entirely snark free. The co-hosts had some fun at the expense of the upcoming Academy Awards, which Kevin Hart really most sincerely says he will not host, despite the best efforts this week of Ellen DeGeneres and the Academy to get him to change his mind. Hart stepped down from the gig two days after being announced, when social media glommed on to homophobic tweets from his past. The Academy hasn’t named a replacement with the clock ticking.
“We are gonna have some fun, give out some awards and one lucky member WILL HOST THE OSCARS!” Oh and Samberg shouted in unison at the top of their monologue.
Riffing off that controversy, Samberg and Oh acknowledged, some people might be wondering why they are co-hosting the Globes.
“And the reason is we’re the only two people left in Hollywood who haven’t gotten into trouble for saying something offensive,” Oh snarked.
“Ooh, that reminds me,” Samberg jumped in. “You know what race of people really gets under my skin?!” as Oh tried to shut him up.
“The Hollywood half marathon! Because it messes up all the traffic. It’s the worst race of people!”
Watch the video above.
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