Here's the beginning of an article on the 2018 Oscar predictions:
"It is crunch time as now I am forced to put up or shut up". It continues with "stick-a-fork-in-it" and "take-it-to-the-bank" calls. I would pronounce this writer an idiom-addict.
So on to the "Academy Award of Merit", now called the "Oscar". It is the oldest worldwide entertainment awards ceremony. It started in 1929. Motion pictures were born in 1885 with the Lumber brothers' short films in Paris. The first studio was built in 1897, and in the 1900's permanent theatre showings occurred. The first feature length multi-reel film was in 1906. Newsreels were shown from 1910 on. By 1914 commercial cinema was established. So the beginning of awards by 1929 seems to make sense.
The first broadcast of the Oscars on television was in 1953. Bob Hope and Conrad Nagel were the first televised hosts. The next year it was Donald O'Connor and Fredric March. My remembrance is of Bob Hope and he hosted many times. Even Frank Sinatra was a host - in 1963. All the hosts are listed HERE.
Did you know that there was no host from 1969 - 1971 and in 1989? In 1989, it was Lucille Ball's last appearance. She was a co-presenter with Bob Hope at that Oscar ceremony. She died a month later at 77. Bob Hope lived to be 100, and died in 2003.
The viewing audience size and the advertising revenues are the Oscar performance measures. The biggest Oscars were in 1998, and it is attributed to the movie Titanic. 55.25 million people watched. You can see an amazing piece from Vanity Fair on the 1998 oscars. It is full of clips and funny lines.
Here's our garden snow scene after the storm last week.
