At the Oscars this year a rather embarrassing goof-up took place when the presenters on stage announced the wrong name of the awardee for the Best Film. The hosts on stage, Warren Beaty and Faye Dunaway, had been accidently handed the envelope for the Best Actress which had “Emma Stone, La La Land” written on it. This had caused an awkward stare between the presenters, who were doubtful of the whole message. The error was soon corrected and Moonlight was announced as the rightful winner. This obviously drew massive attention, but this isn’t the only case in the history of live television events, especially award shows, when such a “mishap” took place. Beginning with 1934, when one of the first ever award-show goof-ups took place, there have a been a string of similar occurrences — when names were mispronounced, awards handed to the wrong people or acceptance speeches were cut midway.
1934 was the year when the simplest of confusions led to a rather funny situation. It was the night of the Academy Awards and the nominees for the best director included both Frank Capra for his movie Lady for a day and Frank Lloyd for his work Cavalcade. The presenter for the award was Will Rogers who after opening the envelope just said, “Come on up and get it, Frank.” Frank Capra, who got a little too enthusiastic, stood up and immediately headed for the stage. He was then taken up by a chill of awkwardness when he was requested to stop since the winner was actually Frank Lloyd.
In 1947, at the Oscars, Rosalind Russell had been nominated for the Best Actress award for her work in the film Mourning Becomes Electra. She had been nominated twice before and had lost. This time, in her excitement perhaps, she stood up even before the name of the winner had been announced and that resulted in yet again that moment of awkward silence. The actual winner was Loretta Young for her film The Farmer’s Daughter.
During the Oscars back in 1964 another silly situation cropped up when the presented on stage was Sammy Davis Jr. The award was for the Best Music (Film Score). Davis Jr., much like this year’s fiasco, was handed the incorrect envelope and went on to announce John Addison as the winner for his work in the movie Tom Jones. The mistake was instantly corrected since John Addison wasn’t even one of the nominees. The winner turned out to be Andre Pervin for Irma La Douce.
In 2007, one of the most significant intentional cuts on live television of all was the censoring of Sally Field’s acceptance speech. It was at the Emmy’s that Sally Field had won the award for Best Performance in a Dramatic series, for her work in Brothers & Sisters. Sally Field’s acceptance speech for the award went into the details of her character, who was a mother waiting for her son who had been sent off to war. Just when the organizers realised that the speech had started to take a deeply Anti-War turn and could be politically misinterpreted they raised the music and a view of the audience was brought on screen. Sally actually said, as the music came on, “I’m not finished. I have to finish talking…”
John Travolta was the cause of a hilarious live global-television goof up. It was the Oscars in 2014 and the stage was set for a performance of the popular song “Let it go” from the animated movie Frozen. The song was to be performed by Idina Menzel whom John Travolta introduced on stage as “Adele Dazeem”, who isn’t even an actual person.
At the Miss Universe pageant, which was broadcasted live globally, the popular tv show host and comedian Steven Harley completely mispronounced the winner even when the correct one was given in the envelope. The prize was for Miss Universe and Steven Harley announced Miss Colombia as the winner. Shortly after the announcement Steven Harley apologized and announced the correct winner: Miss Philippines. The whole mistake had resulted in a very awkward end to the year’s Miss Universe pageant.
This mistake was perhaps one of the most heated ones to ever take place. This very year at the Golden Globes the same error was repeated at two different instances of the event. The movies in discussion were Hidden Figures and Fences. Jena Bush Hager, at the Red Carpet, during a conversation with Pharrell Williams who was nominated for producing original score for the film Hidden Figures, referred to the film as Hidden Fences. The same error was then repeated on stage by Michael Keaton when he announced Viola Davis’ name for Best Supporting Actress in Hidden Figures. Both films had all African-American casts, and this caused a whole spur of comments on the internet. Funny, how Hidden Fences isn’t even the name of an actual movie.