You gotta be a Jimmy

Jimmy Kimmel

Ambitious TV talents who dream of hosting big awards shows like the Grammys and Oscars wonder what they need to do to clinch those career-boosting assignments. What skills and training should they acquire, how much experience and versatility is required, etc.? Well, judging from the stellar talents who do get to host big-deal awards show this season, what would really help is—if the ambitious prospective hosts are named Jimmy!

That’s right, based on recent and current experience, just being called James or Jimmy is turning out to be a decided plus factor this TV season.

Item: the host of the recent Golden Globes awards show for movies and television was Jimmy Fallon. The host of the Grammys was James Corden. And the huge honor and distinction of being tapped to host the Oscars or US Academy Awards later this month goes to —Jimmy Kimmel!

All things being equal, you gotta be a Jimmy! The “evidence” is just coincidental, of course, but it’s bemusing, just the same. So sorry, Ricky and Billy and Ellen, you simply don’t have the key nominal “K”—or “J”!

Less coincidentally now, a possible reason why the “J” rule has come to reign over the awards biz is the “just folks” sound of the name Jimmy. Its kissing cousin would be Johnny—as in another popular awards show host in decades past, Johnny Carson. Jimmy or Johnny, it’s still the “J” guys who have the keys to the joint!

What about the best awards show hosts? The coincidental verdict is more divided on that one, but Billy Crystal, Ricky Gervais, Neil Patrick Harris, Ellen DeGeneres, Bob Hope and the “twin team” of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are cited as having set high touchstones and standards for the rest of the hosting rat pack to emulate.

What makes their hosting stints so remarkable? They’re praised for daring, not to please, but to disturb and even incense.

They gleefully mock the big stars in the audience, cast cynical aspersions even on award winners, and gleefully generate laughs at everybody else’s expense.

In addition, they are extremely versatile players—they don’t just talk and crack jokes, but also sing, dance, make a grand entrance on horseback, roller-skate, ice-skate, impersonate a rogues’ gallery of stars—etc!

What about the worst awards show hosts? They are derided for being too inexperienced and inept to take charge of things—like Oscar hosts James Franco and Anne Hathaway (2011). Franco was dissed for being “bizarrely disinterested,” while Hathaway was deemed to be “annoyingly enthusiastic!”

Also roundly derided was the 1983 group-hosting effort or attempt of Liza Minnelli, Dudley Moore, Richard Pryor and Walter Matthau, a mismatched quartet of “talents” who bombed from the very start of their performance.

Still-traumatized eyewitnesses recall with a shiver that “Minnelli” was forced to carry the opening number—as Moore, Pryor and Matthau just sort of stood around!

We can bet that the Jimmys—Fallon, Corden and Kimmel—have or will be doing their darnedest to avoid coming up with debacles of their own. They’re Jimmys, after all—and have a lot to live up to!