The mark of success
How do you know when you're good? When the consensus is that you bombed as an Oscar host.
This item (from Crisscross) was from the afternoon of Sunday, March 5:
"Jon Stewart is hopelessly miscast. His anti-establishment sensibility is likely to backfire the way comedians Chris Rock and David Letterman flopped during their turns as host."
Oscar pundit Tom O'Neil, saying he doesn't think Stewart is the ideal Academy Awards host.
I missed the Oscars myself - theatre rehearsal - but Those That Know say that Stewart bombed:
Jon Stewart is the latest victim of the Oscar curse. He was too cynical, too New York, went one school of thought. No, he was too deferential, too reined in, argued others. The one thing most agreed on: It didn't work.
You would have been more amused Sunday night if you'd revved up your TiVo and played back an evening's worth of ``Daily Show with Jon Stewart'' reruns while you tracked Oscar winners on the Web.
While film critic duo Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper raved about Stewart's "smart" performance and likened him to past Oscar host Johnny Carson, others, including the New York Post and MSNBC, judged him to be dull and noted the lukewarm reception he received from the Hollywood insider audience at the Kodak Center.
It's hard to believe that professional entertainers could have put together a show less entertaining than this year's Oscars, hosted with a smug humorlessness by comic Jon Stewart, a sad and pale shadow of great hosts gone by.
Stewart['s] Daily Show is often weakest when he has to interview some star plugging a movie and strongest when it shoots darts at politicians and the media. But if he errs too much on the side of Michael Moore-dom, he's not likely to be invited back. Fortunately, unless Tucker Carlson happens to be in the room with him, even Stewart's sharpest jabs are softened somewhat by his self-deprecating, almost cuddly nice-guy appeal. Politicians seem to deal with that; stars, we're not so sure about.
Jon Stewart bombed as host, but that's a thankless job anyway. If Chris Rock and Letterman were considered 'bad' hosts, I don't think anyone could do it and get good reviews.
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