Can Jimmy Kimmel Bring Late-Night Laughs to the Oscars? 3 Bits We'd Like to See

Jimmy Kimmel
Jimmy Kimmel

In some ways, Jimmy Kimmel seems like the safest possible choice to host 2017’s Academy Awards: He’s largely apolitical, rarely controversial, and already associated with the show, thanks to his annual “After the Oscars” edition of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, which has been airing after the ceremony since 2010. At the same time, hosting the Oscars is a notoriously difficult gig, and past talk show hosts who’ve accepted the challenge — including Jon Stewart, Ellen DeGeneres, and, infamously, David Letterman — have seen their go-to comedy bits land with a thud in that room full of stars. (Johnny Carson fared better during his five hosting gigs in the ’70s and ’80s, but that was a different time and a different telecast.)

Related: Remembering the Best Oscar Telecast Ever

Kimmel does have one exceptionally sharp tool in his Oscar arsenal: He’s good at persuading even the most humorless of celebrities to make fun of themselves. On Hollywood’s most self-congratulatory night of the year, stars who don’t take themselves too seriously are a breath of fresh air. With that in mind, here are three Jimmy Kimmel Live! segments that could be adapted successfully for an Oscar audience.

Mean Tweets


Judging from their hundreds of millions of YouTube views, no one can resist a “Mean Tweets” video. Seems like it would be easy enough to do an Oscar-based version of this segment, featuring nominees and/or past winners reading insulting tweets about themselves.

Star-Studded Parodies

Every year for his after-Oscar special, Kimmel unites a ridiculous number of celebrities in video spoofs, like the mock trailer for Movie: The Movie [above]. It’s an Oscar tradition for hosts to insert themselves into nominated films — Billy Crystal did it, as did Anne Hathaway and James Franco — but it would be nice to see Kimmel take the idea one step further and create something truly bonkers.

F***ing Matt Damon


Kimmel’s rivalry with Matt Damon is his best running gag, so why not run with it all the way to the Oscars? It began with the 2008 video featuring Kimmel’s then-girlfriend Sarah Silverman and has continued over dozens of segments featuring both Damon and his BFF Ben Affleck (including the one above, from this summer). While Kimmel shouldn’t rely too heavily on his late-night material, Damon and Affleck are such Oscar darlings that it would be a shame to leave them out.

The 89th Academy Awards will air on ABC on Sunday, Feb. 26, 2017.