Last night’s Academy Awards were in many ways predictable, rife with the pomp, circumstance, film montages that are supposed to recall the majesty of movies, awards for mostly unsurprising recipients, and almost-funny jokes that we’ve all come to expect. On a side note, one of the evening’s sole surprises was that Hugh Jackman proved to be a very competent master of ceremonies, perhaps, precisely because he is not a comedian with neutered material suitable for prime-time broadcasting. His lack of professional hilarity made it okay to laugh at any semblance of humor, and helped to numb—though not completely alleviate—the pain of Jon Stewart not being asked to host again.
But amidst all of the evening’s self-importance and manufactured magic, something quite wonderful did happen.
In the end, the bespectacled buffoon Al Franken beat the John Kerry-caricature Norm Coleman by a paltry 225 votes, but, with over two months having passed since election night, the process took even longer than expected. Owl and Bear has an exclusive look into what happened.
Gearing up for his NBCÂ late-night premiere on March 2, 2009, Jimmy Fallon plans to release a series of behind-the-scenes Web-exclusive videos, the first of which aired (interneted?) last night.
We didn’t learn all that much about Jimmy or the show except that he’s excited, and perhaps humbled, to be occupying the recently vacated news studio that once housed Milton Berle and Johnny Carson, before the latter’s show moved to California. Also, in a passing moment before the video goes black, Fallon introduces the Roots as his Max Weinberg 7.
Let’s think back to the primaries and recall how historic they were turning out to be. Democratic front runners Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were neck and neck in the primaries. Though it wasn’t clear who would take the nomination, we knew that we were in for an historic campaign either way.
Obama would of course overtake Clinton and became the first black Democratic presidential candidate, and by August we knew it was either McCain-Palin or Obama-Biden that would triumph. Perhaps there was a sense of relief, too, in what those two tickets had in common: neither had a Bush or a Clinton anywhere in sight.
These must be sad, lonely days for George W. Bush. As a lame-duck president with his lowest-ever approval ratings, his thoughts about a legacy must be grim. There’s the war in Iraq, there’s the dismal economy, and there’s nothing on TV anymore.
Plus, the release of Oliver Stone’s biopic W. this fall couldn’t have helped the president’s self-esteem. (Though, it is rumored that Bush said this of Stone’s work: “He did a heck of a job.”)
Obama has already declared dibs on closing Guantanamo Bay and (when not proving that Michelle has his balls in a jar) he reiterated his intent to dismantle Gitmo on 60 Minutes, which received its highest viewership in recent memory.
Last night’s Academy Awards were in many ways predictable, rife with the pomp, circumstance, film montages that are supposed to recall the majesty of movies, awards for mostly unsurprising recipients, and almost-funny jokes that we’ve all come to expect. On a side note, one of the evening’s sole surprises was that Hugh Jackman proved to be a very competent master of ceremonies, perhaps, precisely because he is not a comedian with neutered material suitable for prime-time broadcasting. His lack of professional hilarity made it okay to laugh at any semblance of humor, and helped to numb—though not completely alleviate—the pain of Jon Stewart not being asked to host again.
Gearing up for his NBCÂ late-night premiere on March 2, 2009, Jimmy Fallon plans to release a series of 
Let’s think back to the primaries and recall how historic they were turning out to be. Democratic front runners Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were neck and neck in the primaries. Though it wasn’t clear who would take the nomination, we knew that we were in for an historic campaign either way.
These must be sad, lonely days for George W. Bush. As a lame-duck president with his lowest-ever approval ratings,