“The joke’s on Jo Koy: Golden Globes host delivers a
bad gig for the ages” (The Guardian)
“Jo Koy: The tokenistic Golden Globes choice who
completely bombed” (The Canberra Times)
“Jo Koy ‘bombs’ Golden Globes monologue as fans rip host
as ‘weak’ for blaming writers and throwing them under the bus” (The U.S. Sun)
The banners above speak volumes of Jo Koy’s Golden
Globes flop.
Hosting the Golden Globe Awards is a great honor and a
daunting challenge. Calling for lots of preparation, skill, and confidence to
entertain and impress millions of viewers, as well as celebrities and critics, such
a task is neither for the faint-hearted nor the unequipped. Unfortunately, Jo
Koy learned this the hard way when he bombed his monologue as the host of the 2024
Golden Globes.
Jo Koy, the 52-year-old Filipino-American – born
Joseph Glenn Herbert Sr -- is a talented and successful comedian, but he was
not ready for the pressure and the expectations of hosting such a prestigious event.
With only two weeks to prepare, he wrote most of the jokes himself.
“When they asked me, it was an immediate yes. I
couldn’t believe this was happening – and then I woke up and went, ‘Wait a
minute, I have two weeks to write jokes!’” he told Variety. “Actually, I think
I had less than two weeks because I didn’t get my writers until five days later.
It’s been a crash course in hosting.” Previous hosts have months to prepare.
As expected, neither were his jokes well-researched
nor well-written. Appearing nervous on stage, he awkwardly delivered jokes that
were either too bland or too offensive.
When his jokes failed to elicit laughter or applause
from the audience, he lost his cool and blamed his writers. “Yo, I got the gig
ten days ago, you want a perfect monologue?” he yelled. “Yo, shut up! You’re
kidding me, right? Slow down. I wrote some of these, and they’re the ones
you’re laughing at.”
What’s more, Jo Koy made some cringey remarks about some of the celebrities, like, Taylor Swift. Had he done his homework he could have figured out the fallout, just a few days back, on The New York Times’ questioning Swift’s sexuality. So infuriated were the millions of Swifties that they have gone scorched earth on Times for throwing “ethics out the window.” Jo Koy dissing Swift then rubbing salt into the wound.
An easy mark is Barbie. “Barbie is on a plastic doll
with big boobies, Jo Koy quipped. “I watched Barbie I loved it. I really did
love it. I don’t want you guys to think that I’m a creep but it was kind of
weird being attracted to a plastic doll… The key moment in Barbie is when she
goes from perfect Beauty to bad breath cellulite and flat feet.” Right-wingers
accused Barbie of being an “anti-male” movie. Thus, Jo Koy's joke added fuel to the
raging “woke” fire.
Most of us could relate to Jo Koy’s sad experience. Who
hadn’t taken a school exam that went awry? Imagine this. We had to take a final
exam for a subject – the lectures we hadn’t attended, the readings we hadn’t
done, and the assignments we hadn’t submitted. We had procrastinated and
crammed the night before the exam, hoping that we could somehow pass the
subject. We were wrong.
The exam was very difficult. We were clueless and
panicked. We wanted to give up and walk out of the room. We wished that we had
prepared better, worked hard, and sought help.
Jo Koy could have sought help, not just from human writers,
but in the age of AI, ChatGPT, Bing, Bard, or any language model. With two
weeks, Jo Koy had the luxury of time.
In collaboration with ChatGPT, I conjured up a mental
picture of rewinding a bit the time and put together a remodeled monologue
which might have saved the day for Jo Koy:
REMODELED MONOLOGUE
Welcome to the 81st Golden Globe Awards,
live from the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles. I’m your host, Jo Koy, and
I’m so honored and excited to be here tonight. Thank you to the Hollywood
Foreign Press Association for choosing me to host this prestigious event. I
know you’ve been through a lot of changes and challenges in the past few years,
but I’m glad you finally decided to embrace diversity and inclusion. And by
that, I mean hiring a Filipino-American comedian who has no experience in
hosting anything, let alone a major awards show. Seriously, what were you
thinking? Did you run out of options? Did you lose a bet? Did you think I was
Manny Pacquiao? Well, whatever the reason, I’m here, and I’m ready to make
history. Or at least, make you laugh.
But before we start, I want to acknowledge the amazing
nominees and winners we have tonight. You are the reason we are here, and you
deserve all the recognition and applause for your incredible work. You have
entertained, inspired, and moved us with your stories, your performances, and
your talents. You have also made us forget, for a moment, the troubles and
hardships we faced in the past year. The pandemic, the politics, the climate
change, the social unrest, the cyberattacks, the UFO massive landfall, the AI takeover of humanity… Okay,
delete the last two, but you get the point. You have given us hope and joy, and
we thank you.
But enough with the serious stuff, let’s have some
fun. We will have some surprises, some jokes, and some musical numbers. Nah,
I’m not going to sing. I’m just going to act like a… well, like a Filipino. And
if you don’t know what that means, you’ll find out soon enough. It means I can
eat rice with anything, even with rice. I season my food with salt, pepper, and
soy sauce without tasting it first. I take a leak in an open area and say
“Tabi-tabi po!” to ward off spirits that might dwell right on the spot and
gobble up my joystick. Better safe than sorry.
So, sit back, relax, and enjoy the show. And remember,
this is all in good fun. Because I’m here to make you laugh, not to make you
angry, and to make you smile like Taylor Swift here. Because she is a brilliant
artist, a generous philanthropist, and a role model for millions of fans, she
doesn’t deserve to be speculated by the media for her personal life, her
sexuality, or her choices. I’m here to back her up. Jo Koy knows how to treat a
lady. And Travis, chill, I’m not eyeing your babe. I’m just a joker, you’re a
baller.
Let me tell you that the minute I signed the hosting
contract, I thought right away of Woody Allen’s 101 tip. I went into an hour of
speed-reading lesson. Then, I locked myself in a room and read an Oppenheimer thick
book in one hour flat. Right there and then, I got to the bottom of the movie:
it’s about a bomb. Period. A piece of cake.
Oppenheimer and Barbie are competing for cinematic box
office achievement. Speaking of brain-power competition, here are five
mind-bending questions to test what’s between your ears. Ready? Please try to
answer them in your mind. And no sharing of answers, please. What do you call a Barbie
who is a lawyer? A sue-perstar. How do
you make a Barbie doll laugh? Tickle her plastic. Why did Ken break up with
Barbie? Because he found out she was made in China. What do you get when you
cross a Barbie and a vampire? A doll that sucks. Finally, a state-of-the-art question. Why
did Barbie go to the doctor? Because she had a plastic surgery.
How did you score, Mr. De Niro? I just want to say to
our viewers this one thing. The story I wrote about Mr. De Niro was edited and cut
out, and I didn’t know about it. And I want to read it on my phone. This is a
scoop.
One day, Mr. De Niro was walking down the street in
New York, when he saw a group of tourists taking pictures of a building. He
approached them and asked what they were doing. They told them that they were
fans of his movies and that they were visiting the location where he filmed
Taxi Driver. De Niro smiled and said that he was glad to meet them. He offered
to take a picture with them and they happily agreed. He took their camera, then
said, “You talkin’ to me?” All of a sudden, he ran away with their camera. The
man was a neighborhood con artist who happened to look like Mr. De Niro. You
talkin’ to me, Mr. De Niro? I’m not the only one here.
We also have here Meryl Streep. Knock, knock. Who’s
there? Meryl. Meryl who? Meryl back in a minute, I forgot my three Oscars,
eight Golden Globes, three Emmys, two BAFTAs, and seven Grammy nominations. And
a partridge in a pear tree.
You talkin’ to me Mr. De Niro? Could you knock all
those trophies out?
When I was a kid, my mom used to make me watch the
Golden Globes with her every year. She loved seeing all the celebrities and the
glamorous outfits. She would always tell me, “Joey, one day you’re going to be
on that stage, and you’re going to make me proud." Well, Mom, I hope you’re
watching tonight because I finally nailed it. And I hope you’re proud of me,
Mom because I’m wearing the watch you bought me as a graduation gift in High
School. Though it can no longer tell me the time when to pull the plug on this
show.
Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the Golden Globes, and I’m Jo Koy. Let’s get this party fired up.
Content put together in collaboration with Bing
Microsoft AI-powered Co-pilot
Head photo courtesy of YouTube
Video clips courtesy of YouTube
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