The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Catalogue of gaffes leaves viewers and audiences cringing
The error that saw La La Land wrongly announced as the best picture winner instead of Moonlight is the latest in a long line of embarrassing televised mix-ups and mistakes. Michael Alexander looks at some of the most memorable.
It is not the first time a high profile awards ceremony has been marred by cringe-making gaffes, wrong results being read out or results not being read out at all.
The La La Land team were not even the first to have an Oscars win snatched from under them.
At the 1934 ceremony, actor Will Rogers announced the best director winner by yelling out, ‘Come up and get it, Frank!’ As Frank Capra headed to the stage, believing he had won for Lady For A Day, the real winner was actually Frank Lloyd for Cavalcade.
In 2013, Jennifer Lawrence lived the nightmare every award-winner fears, when she tripped up the stairs while walking to the stage to receive her best actress gong.
The following year John Travolta puzzled everyone as he introduced Frozen star Idina Menzel to the stage as Adele Dazeem for her performance of Let It Go.
However, it’s not just movie ceremonies that can leave viewers cringing.
Take the annual Brit Awards. Madonna tumbled off the stage during a much-hyped live performance in 2015 and last week a dancer dressed as a house – yes, really – did the same during a Katy Perry song.
Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker dashed on to the stage and wiggled his bottom at the crowd during Michael Jackson’s epic live performance of Earth Song in 1996, stating it was a “form of protest at the way Michael Jackson sees himself as some kind of Christ-like figure with the power of healing”.
Elsewhere, Olly Murs was left redfaced in 2015 after he told an X Factor contestant she was going home before the result was officially announced.
Miss Universe made headlines for all the wrong reasons during the same year when host Steve Harvey announced the wrong winner, Colombia’s Ariadna Gutiérrez.
She was crowned and given the sash but a few moments later, Harvey had to go back up on stage in Las Vegas and announce the real winner as Miss Philippines, Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach.
Something similar happened in 2010 when Australia’s Next Top Model host Sarah Murdoch wrongly announced that Kelsey Martinovich was the winner.
After Martinovich gave a speech, Murdoch suddenly had to recant and announce that the winner was actually Amanda Ware.
In January there was tittering when legendary comedian Ken Dodd repeatedly messed up on stage at the National Television Awards.
The 89-year-old funny man was awarding the gong for best comedy to BBC1 show Mrs Brown’s Boys.
But when reading out the nominees, he accidentally called out Mrs Brown’s Boys instead of Orange Is The New Black when the Netflix Original was showing on the big screen.