Maybe more than any other major award ceremony, the Academy Awards are all about prestige. Every year, a huge assemblage of talented actors and filmmakers gather to acknowledge the year’s achievements in film and try to be as dignified as possible in doing so. Of course, that only makes it all the funnier when the production doesn’t go quite according to plan — a frequent occurrence in live television that has accounted for many of the most memorable, uncomfortable and often hilarious moments in the Academy’s nearly-century long history.
1938: A Random Guy Steals an Award Meant for Alice Brady
It’s a shame this Oscar moment happened a few years too early to be televised.
Actress Alice Brady won the award for Best Supporting Actress for her work in the film Old Chicago. Since she wasn’t present, an unknown man came onstage and accepted the award on her behalf, while the rest of the Academy assumed this was planned. That clever man and his stolen award were never heard from again, and the Academy later issued Brady a replacement.
1957: A Short Film with No Dialogue Wins Best Screenplay
The 1957 film The Red Balloon won the Academy Award for Best Screenplay — a win so strange it seems it must have been some kind of miscalculation.
The movie contains next-to-zero dialogue and has only a half-hour runtime, meaning it should have been nominated as a short rather than competing with, and somehow defeating, feature-length efforts like La Strada and The Ladykillers. It’s an oddity in Oscar history with no good explanation.
1973: Sacheen Littlefeather Accepts an Oscar for Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando was present at the Academy Awards upon being rewarded Best Actor for The Godfather, but he had his friend Sacheen Littlefeather take the stage in his place to deliver a prepared speech about Hollywood’s misrepresentation of Native Americans.
The soft-spoken Littlefeather was forced to trim the speech down to a single minute, interrupted with a combination of cheers and boos, before delivering the full speech to the press backstage.
1974: The Streaker
Actor David Niven was in the midst of introducing Elizabeth Taylor as presenter when someone else entirely darted across the stage behind him — a streaker, 33-year-old Robert Opel, flashing a peace sign as the audience laughed and Niven looked on in unshakeable amusement.
He recovered from the interruption with a zinger for the ages: “Isn't it fascinating to think that probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off his clothes and showing his shortcomings?”
1989: Rob Lowe Duets with Snow White
The 61st Academy Awards was a show without a host, and it began with an embarrassing opening number from the mind of Grease producer Allen Carr, featuring a young Rob Lowe singing “Proud Mary” opposite “Snow White,” as played by 22-year-old Eileen Bowman.
It sounds harmless enough, but Lowe’s singing voice was painfully strained and even the production was decried by many A-listers as an embarrassment. Perhaps Bowman summed it up best when she remarked that, “the show itself looked like a gay bar mitzvah.”
2000: The Creators of South Park Walk the Red Carpet in Dresses, on Acid
When South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut was nominated for Best Original Song, series creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone decided to walk the red carpet in drag, mirroring the irreverence of their long-running Comedy Central series and confusing the many red carpet reporters who couldn’t get a straight answer out of the two.
Stone and Parker later confessed that they had taken LSD beforehand to make the ceremony more interesting for themselves.
2000: Angelina Jolie Kisses Her Brother
Angelina Jolie’s Best Supporting Actress win for her performance in Girl, Interrupted was overshadowed, particularly in the tabloids, by another awards night incident. On the red carpet, Jolie kissed her older brother James Haven on the lips with a forcefulness that sparked persistent rumors about an incestuous relationship between the two.
She only added fuel to the fire when she began her acceptance speech, “I'm in shock, and I'm so in love with my brother right now," she giggled. "He just held me and said he loved me and I know he's so happy for me.”
2001: Bjork Lays an Egg on the Red Carpet
Known for her idiosyncratic music and sense of style, Icelandic singer Bjork lived up to her reputation and then some during her 2001 red carpet walk.
She wore a ruffled white dress designed to resemble a swan wrapped around her body, and while walking towards the entrance, dropped a football-sized egg out of her dress for all the cameras to see.
2003: Adrien Brody Makes Out with Halle Berry
After winning Best Actor for his role in The Pianist, Adrien Brody began celebrating immediately — by taking awards presenter Halle Berry in his arms and locking lips in a swooning kiss that lasted far longer than most would expect.
It’s just as entertaining to watch the crowd reaction shots, featuring celebrities alternately enthused or displeased by the unexpected embrace.
2014: “Adele Dazeem”
A simple introduction became an instant meme following John Travolta’s botched introduction of singer Idina Menzel before her performance of Frozen’s “Let It Go.”
In one of the strangest moments of his often strange career, Travolta butchered her name to the unrecognizable “Adele Dazeem.” The flub became so infamous the pair returned to the stage to set things right the following year, though that only resulted in some supremely awkward face-touching from Travolta.
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