Conan O’brien and the Oscars Tightrope: Comedy, Crisis, and a Promise Not to Spoil the Joke

Conan O’brien is heading back into Hollywood’s most unforgiving live arena while insisting he and his team will “find the right tone” for an Oscars ceremony unfolding under the shadow of the ongoing Iran war—an unusually stark backdrop for a show built to celebrate.

What is Conan O’brien really promising when he talks about “the right tone”?

At a Wednesday news conference with the Oscars creative team, Conan O’brien framed his job as a constant balancing act: entertaining viewers while acknowledging reality. He described the task as “a dance” that continues up until the show begins, with revisions still underway to keep material as relevant as possible. Standing alongside Oscars telecast executive producers Katy Mullan and Raj Kapoor, he underscored a shared commitment to calibrate the broadcast’s mood as circumstances evolve.

Conan O’brien also pointed to a historical example that shaped his thinking: Johnny Carson hosting the Oscars during the Iran hostage crisis. He recalled Carson parodying ABC’s “Nightline” with the line, “It’s day 444 of the Oscars. ” Conan O’brien said the joke mattered to him because it was topical, addressed what people were thinking about, landed a big laugh, and felt unifying at a tense moment.

How is the host building the show’s jokes—and what does that reveal about the pressure?

In the run-up to his March 15 engagement hosting the Academy Awards, Conan O’brien has been testing material in live settings while spending much of his days in the writers room. Backstage at Largo, the Los Angeles comedy club, he delivered a 20-minute set drawn from material he has been honing for three months—part of a broader effort to workshop jokes through multiple surprise performances around the region. Five writers joined him in the process, including two planted in the audience, as the group debated what worked, what didn’t, and what might play differently inside the Dolby Theatre versus for a television audience.

He described himself as obsessive about the work, saying he wants to turn it off but cannot. He connected that mindset to self-knowledge, saying that at 62 he understands his own patterns and even invokes what he called the “Conan Owner’s Manual. ” The preparation, by his own description and by the structure of the sessions around him, is designed to reduce the risk of a live telecast that can go sideways quickly.

That tension also surfaced in a separate late-night interview moment, where he joked about struggling to come up with an Oscars bit involving the movie “Train Dreams, ” then pivoted into comedic outrage about awards recognition. He ranted about actors nominated in the Best Supporting category while he received nothing for his role in “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, ” shouting, “I’M BETTER THAN ALL OF THEM COMBINED, AND YET I WAS DENIED!” The tone was exaggerated for laughs, but it also highlighted a theme running through his approach: high stakes, heightened emotion, and an impulse to turn pressure into performance.

What systems and themes are shaping the ceremony beyond the jokes?

The creative team has publicly emphasized security planning and a thematic direction meant to distinguish the show from a moment increasingly defined by technology and geopolitical strain. Raj Kapoor said the production is putting systems in place to address attendees’ safety concerns amid the tense global situation and reported threats to California. He said the ceremony has support from the FBI and the LAPD and stressed that the show has to run “like clockwork, ” adding that the goal is for everyone—attendees, viewers, and fans outside barricades—to feel safe, protected, and welcome.

On the creative front, the team described “human touch” as a unifying theme. Music director Michael Bearden called it a celebration of “human touch, human connection, ” and what he described as “actual intelligence, as opposed to artificial, ” saying the show aims to return to the communal and that the music will reflect that.

The Oscars team also previewed specific performance elements. Kapoor described a “KPop Demon Hunters” performance celebrating Korean culture with authentic Korean drummers and singers and choreography. He also pointed to a “Sinners” moment featuring Miles Caton and Raphael Saadiq, alongside guests Misty Copeland, Eric Gales, Buddy Guy, Brittany Howard, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, Jayme Lawson, Li Jun Li, Bobby Rush, Shaboozey and Alice Smith.

The telecast itself is scheduled for Sunday at 4 p. m. Pacific, airing live on ABC, with Conan O’brien returning as host. For the people building the show, the message is control where possible—security systems, precise production, and a thematic throughline—while leaving room for a host still revising, still testing, and still protecting jokes he is not ready to reveal.