[imagesource: Gary Hershorn / Newscom / Reuters]

We’re almost there.

Yup, that time of the year when the Oscars are handed out and emotional speeches are made, although not all of those go down too well.

Then there are the cringeworthy segments between awards, some average musical performances, and the odd tumble thrown into the mix.

Thankfully, The Guardian has compiled a list of 20 of the oddest incidents in the storied history of the Academy Awards, but we’ll just cover five and move along.

To start, here’s one that isn’t really that awkward, but is worth revisiting:

Nobody has ever accepted an award like Jack Palance. Winning best supporting actor at the age of 73 for his role in City Slickers, he strolled up to the stage, muttered: “Billy Crystal? I crap bigger than him”, then fell to the floor to show the world that he was still capable of doing one-handed pushups.

Can you imagine the Twitter meltdown if this happened today?

Show us that CrossFit pushup, Jack:

That’s actually very impressive for a 73-year-old.

More recently, the 2019 Oscars saw a very awkward speech after Vice won for Best Makeup and Hairstyling:

[They] didn’t seem to know each other when they arrived onstage to collect their award. One of them started a speech, then stopped as his colleague unfurled her own speech. She ordered him to read it. He refused. She started reading it. A third winner, holding her own speech, haltingly joined in.

The speech starts from the 1:15 mark:

That music couldn’t come soon enough.

The next awkward moment is actually spread over two years – 2014 and 2015 – and involves John Travolta and Idina Menzel.

Whilst introducing a performance of ‘Let It Go’, Travolta called her ‘Adele Dazeem’. Menzel wasn’t about to forget it:

The mistake made an instant global laughing stock of Travolta, who was invited back the following year to make amends. And that started well, with Menzel introducing him as “Glom Gazingo”, but then – snatching defeat from the jaws of victory yet again – Travolta reacted by positioning himself uncomfortably close to her and stroking her chin in a way that suggested he was about to choke her.

He really should have said her name and stopped with the excessive face touching:

How many is that? Three? Sheesh, on we go.

In fourth, what is surely the most embarrassing and awkward Oscar moment of all time, 2017’s La La Land / Moonlight fiasco:

…a PricewaterhouseCoopers employee was so dazzled by his physical proximity to Emma Stone that he handed the wrong best picture winner to Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, who mistakenly announced that La La Land (and not eventual winner Moonlight) had won the biggest prize of the night.

The waves of shock, confusion and hurt that crashed across the stage in that moment are, to this day, some of the most incredible in Oscars history.

I still cringe when watching this play out:

Finally, let’s end on something utterly childish, which actually took place during the announcement of the Oscar nominations, rather than the ceremony itself:

Imagine that you are famed cinematographer Dick Pope. Over the course of your three-decade career you’ve become known for adding a layer of sumptuous beauty to the films of Mike Leigh…

This is more than just recognition by your peers. This is a career-changing moment. And then Cheryl Boone Isaacs, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, accidentally calls you “Dick Poop”.

Not cool, Cheryl:

Dick didn’t win, either, but as you’ll hear throughout Sunday’s proceedings, it’s an honour just to be nominated.

You can see the full list of 20 moments here.

[source:guardian]