I was wondering who the hell that was and if I was supposed to recognize him (the actor, not Sammy).

He did blackface as Sammy Davis Jr., in his opening clip segment pre-filmed thingie.

Uh, no. FAIL.

Did not watch the Oscars and now I'm super glad I didn't! Watched Warehouse 13 on Netflix On Demand instead.

He did blackface as Sammy Davis Jr., in his opening clip segment pre-filmed thingie.

Really? WTF?

I didn't even know it was Oscar time. I may have been getting BIND to work on a virtual server at the time or doing taxes (much better refund that I was thinking it would be, I double checked and tripled checked it and it looked right, not that I was really expecting TurboTax to make a mistake)

There was no reason that sketch needed Sammy Davis Jr, or why a white guy had to play him if he was actually intrinsic (Billy was already in the scene), and the makeup didn't make him look more like SDJ, just less like Billy.

He's not a good enough comedian/actor to get past the baggage, so why take it on?

I don't have a zero tolerance policy on blackface, but I do think it should be carefully considered first. Because it will continue to have baggage for years, and there's nothing any individual can do to take that away. So you have to be able to shoulder it.

Yeah, I saw some jokes ahead of time about how bad it would be if he were in blackface for something about The Help... but no, they just decided to throw in some unrelated blackface! That's OK, then.

The whole thing was so weird and random. By the time I'd figured out that yes, that WAS Billy Crystal in blackface, I was almost too confused to be offended. I just have no idea what any of it added to the scene, or what the joke was supposed to be. (Like, was Justin Bieber originally supposed to be played by Eddie Murphy or something? I DON'T GET IT.)

I thought the "Our next movie is Gone With The Wind" / "Will there be monkeys in it?" exchange was much worse, in light of coming about three seconds after The Help won an Oscar.

On the whole, not a great night for avoiding racism on tv.

In totally unrelated news, I just ate some really spicy Thai noodles for lunch and this is the first time all day I haven't been freezing to my bones. Maybe I can get my doctor to write me a prescription.

I saw reports about the school shooting earlier. The Guardian, a UK paper, had an article up about it an hour before any of the US papers I follow (NY Times, etc.). I'm sorry your parents are so close to it, Kat.

I was hit by the insomnia fairy last night. Today is full of vital people being elsewhere and things not working. And I have a grease spot on my sweater than I didn't notice before leaving the office. All your minor Monday hassles are belong to us. Well, ok, some of them. Enough of them to be going on with.

Oh Kat, how awful.

Didn't watch the Oscars -- I watched last year for the first time in ages and was actually surprised at how boring it was -- but I'm glad that The Artist won so many awards! Not that I've seen it yet, but I want to.

Another long bout of insomnia last night. I am really looking forward to being able to sleep on my back again, though I realize I have many sleepless nights to look forward to for other reasons.

Didn't Billy Crystal used to play Sammy Davis Jr on SNL? Not that it makes last night any less offensive, in any case--I just seem to remember it.