Neil Patrick Harris won more praise for his underwear than for his hosting skills at the Oscars Sunday night.
Harris appeared on stage wearing nothing but socks and underwear briefs for a skit, in what proved to be the high point of an otherwise awkward night for the first-time Oscar host.
The stunt was an homage to a moment from 'Birdman,' in which Michael Keaton's character is forced to walk onto a theatre stage wearing nothing but his underwear.
But there's a big difference between Keaton's 63-year-old body and Harris' cut-from-diamond physique. Not that many people were complaining on Twitter.
No, Twitter saved its gripes for virtually everything else, as Harris' jokes and frequent puns largely fell flat and his ad-libs only added to the misery.
His opening line set the night off on an uncomfortable note.
"Today, we honour Hollywood's best and whitest. Sorry… brightest," he said.
Jokes like that persisted through the night, as Harris crashed and burned on off-colour Martin Luther King quips, French mispronunciations and multiple ball-related moments. At one point, he followed up a woman's passionate plea for suicide awareness by making fun of her fuzzy ball-covered outfit. "Takes a lot of balls to wear that dress," he quipped, moments after the woman finished talking about her dead son.
That didn't sit well with the Twitter-verse.
Disappointed in @ActuallyNPH making glib comment after woman talks about her's son suicide #oscar2015 #Oscar
— djamila s fitzgerald (@djamila617) February 23, 2015
NPH's hosting job devolved into bad stand-up comedy on occasion. He also delivered a number of eyebrow-raising introductions for show presenters that failed to hit their marks.
"Now, it's my pleasure to welcome two people who absolutely deserve to be here tonight. Jennifer Aniston and David Oyelowo," he said at one point.
Was he being sarcastic? Was that a joke? Did he just insult his presenters, or did he simply have nothing else to say?
Harris described Marion Cotillard as "a woman who knows the pronunciation of escargots," and teased a later Lady Gaga performance with the line: "I hear she sings."
Yeesh.
Harris concluded his night by reading his Oscars predictions – a write-up of jokes based on the night's events that drew a smattering of chuckles and applause.
