By now you’ve probably heard about a little, insignificant, teensy-weensy event that took place at the end of Sunday night’s Oscars, but in case you have managed to go without internet for 40 hours straight, we’ll recap: The accountant who hands out the winners’ envelopes got distracted and gave Warren Beatty the card for Best Actress instead of Best Picture, which caused Faye Dunaway to accidently crown La La Land Best Picture winner instead of rightful victor Moonlight.
As you might expect, late-night hosts, probably grateful to have something un–Trump-related to mock for a change, had a ball with the news on Monday.
Conan O’Brien got an “exclusive look” at what was written on the card, revealing that the mix-up really wasn’t the fault of the award’s presenters—not even poor Beatty, who clearly realized something was wrong when he opened the envelope but didn’t speak up. After all, who could possibly decipher what MoonLaLalightland is supposed to mean or follow that godawful flowchart?
The Late Show’s Stephen Colbert felt sorry for the La La Land cast and crew, but not as sorry as he did for Team Moonlight. “It should have been a great moment for African-Americans, but there’s always a catch,” said Colbert in his monologue. “Here’s your Oscar, but some white folks get to touch it first. To make matters worse, while they were up on stage Ryan Gosling had to explain jazz to them.”
Colbert also took jabs at PricewaterhouseCoopers, the firm responsible for the envelope mix-up in the first place, for not keeping better track of the results. “Thank god they don’t run an STD clinic.”
But no one took the joke quite as far as The Late Late Show’s James Corden, who not only dropped a few solid quips about the very public snafu in the monologue (“March is usually a busy months for accountants but I feel it’s gonna be pretty slow for this guy”) but also went above and beyond. Corden dressed up as Emma Stone’s La La Land character—the one she won an Oscar for playing—and digitally inserted himself into the movie’s audition scene for a full-blown parody of “Audition,” rewritten to match the movie’s unfortunate Best Picture fakeout.
Some sample lyrics: “This result doesn’t seem right/ Oscars used to be so white” and “Here’s to the ones who lose/ God, I need so much booze.” Kudos to the Late Late Show writers, costume department, and technical crew for pulling that off in just 24 hours.
