In a sense, you could say it was like the good old days. Oscar night, whether the telecast is great or just so-so (I'm all but incapable of finding the Oscars outright bad - I'm too much of an entertainment junkie),

After way too many hostless or less-than-perfectly hosted Hollywood awards shows over the last few years, Conan O’Brien’s opener as emcee of the 2025 Oscars represented an extremely welcome return to solid joke-writing. (He and Demi Moore really got into it with that Substance bit up top, huh?)

Conan O’Brien’s first-ever Oscars monologue, in his debut as the host of Hollywood’s biggest night, might just be the real winner of the evening.