“Comedy is tragedy plus time.”
Over the years, that famous quote has been attributed to several people: original Tonight Show host Steve Allen; Carol Burnett; Bob Newhart; even Woody Allen. All knew funny, that is for sure.
The quote came back to me when I happened upon a YouTube video from the 82nd Annual Academy Awards, which took place in 2010. Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin were the hosts. I watched the video and laughed out loud throughout their routine. Then I searched for my original review of it here at brioux.tv.
I dismissed it at the time as, “three or four minutes of genuinely memorable moments crammed into the four hour broadcast.”
Is this an example of a) me being wrong again, or b) tragedy plus time equals comedy? Or are there other factors? Was I mad at somebody that year? Did Martin and Baldwin say something that offended me personally? Did I take a beating that year in my Oscar pool?
This year for the 98th Annual Academy Awards (Sunday night at 7 pm EDT on CTV and Crave and ABC and Hulu), Conan O’Brien is returning after earning high marks in 2025. Because he did well last year, expectations will be raised. O’Brien joins other late night talk show hosts who have made an impression, good or bad. Johnny Carson presided five times, beginning in 1979. Jimmy Kimmel has done it three times. John Stewart twice,with David Letterman just one time, in 1995.
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Letterman did not do well, working too much of his Late Show shtick such as “Stupid Dog Tricks” into his set list. His awkward, “Oprah, meet Uma,” intros laid a big egg with the Hollywood “In” crowd. Ever after he beat himself up mercilessly on his own show, milking his flop for all it was worth.
Speaking of flop, a few years before his own late night series on Fox flamed out, Chevy Chase hosted two Oscars. “Greetings, Hollywood phonies,” was his most memorable line.
My initial reaction to Martin and Baldwin is puzzling because I always laugh when Martin and Martin Short perform essentially the same act. Those two have perfected the “insult each other” and goof on everybody else shtick.
What was wrong, therefore, with the jokes told back in 2010? It wasn’t that they weren’t funny. Some examples:
‘There’s that damned Helen Mirren,’ said Martin, spotting her out front in the crowd. “That’s Dame Helen Mirren,” corrected Baldwin.
Maybe it is just that some seem more shocking today. Martin, for example, made what now seems like a totally inappropriate crack about Christoph Waltz, who was playing a Nazi in “Inglorious Basterds.” He suggested that Christoph Waltz spent the entire film searching for Jews.
“Well Christoph,” deadpanned Martin, gesturing towards the Hollywood A-Listers with a sweep of his arm.
The crowd got it that night but it seems unsettling today in a week that has seen synagogues attacked in Toronto and in other countries around the world. Does tragedy in real time time subtract comedy?
Fact is, times have changed. Back then, Trump was just another game show host. The only Epstein Files referred to the accidental death of the manager of The Beatles. ICE was being served with cocktails at post-Oscar parties.
There has always been politics and wars and touchy subjects at Oscar time, but audiences out front in the Dolby Theatre as well as watching at home around the world have never felt so flattened and, frankly, scared. In 2010, you could laugh when Baldwin tells Martin that the movie “Invictus” is about two of his co-host’s favourite passions: “rugby and tensions between blacks and whites.” Telling that joke today might not just upset blacks and whites, it might cause a riot between rugby fans.
Everything now is so touchy. Another 2010 bit you can’t do today: Baldwin spots Meryl Streep in the crowd and works in a plug for the movie they all recently did together, “It’s complicated.” “When Steve and I met Meryl at the start of that movie we both thought the same thing — what a memorable threesome.”
Then Martin and Baldwin break into naughty bros grins and exchange congratulatory handshakes.
Soon after, Martin followed that up with a Hitler joke!
I don’t want to wreck the entire 2010 monologue. Watch the YouTube video of it above. The point is, it seems audacious and funnier now because you couldn’t get away with much of it today. Maybe tragedy plus distance equals comedy. The cancel culture pendulum may be swinging the other way, if recent Netflix comedy specials hosted by Ricky Gervais and Dave Chappelle are any indication. The chill now, however, comes in the middle of the night from Truth Social, or the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, or one or two oligarchs buying up most media outlets. Comedy plus crackdowns equals tragedy.
Which brings us to today and the challenge for Conan O’Brien and his writers. His performance will be scrutinized like never before. As he told Jimmy Kimmel this past week, O’Brien has been testing his Oscar material on his feet at various comedy clubs. That’s smart, getting live feedback, testing how far an audience can take a joke.
Today, however, it comes down to whether one particular person in the White House can take a joke. Everything O’Brien says Sunday night at the 98th Annual Academy Awards will be vetted not just for laughs but also for political impact. The comedian may feel an obligation to simply make people laugh and lift them away, even momentarily, from the next horror, real or fake, showing up on their phones. ABC and Disney, which has the rights to two more Oscars before Netflix takes over, may have a note or two related to holding onto to their broadcast licences.
Comedy, therefore, may no longer be modified by time, but be once upon a time. Podcasting kingpin O’Brien, may be, unlike Kimmel or Stephen Colbert, out of the late night crosshairs, but that only places him a step or two beyond the traditional FCC media targets. While he has stared down bullies before, particularly at NBC, it is still a lot to expect him to stand up like Spartacus, even in a movie year where filmmakers are making cautionary tales about our times.
In another sixteen years, what will critics think of O’Brien’s 2026 stint as Oscar host? Let’s hope that, given time, comedy trumps tragedy.
