I don't watch award shows.

I know that sounds snobby and elitist. It's like people who say they don't watch television, or only watch movies with subtitles, but I'm not that uptight when it comes to popular culture. I can watch and enjoy a lot of trash, but a night dedicated to an entire industry fawning over itself just rubs me the wrong way. My more open-minded friends tell me I should just lighten the hell up, but I can't. Perhaps some day.

Then again, maybe if I were allowed to actually pen some of the speeches myself I would actually tune into the Academy Awards. No one has asked me to do that, but NPR is offering the next best thing: a contest where people write Oscar speeches in a movie character's voice. The winner will have his or her speech recorded in a phone interview and put on NPR.org. I might try my hand at writing a speech in the voice of Alan Arkin's character from Little Miss Sunshine. I wonder if the rules allow one to snort heroin? It would only be to get into the mind of the character, of course.

[via Pop Candy]

(S02E03) This episode, in which Chris runs for class president, borrowed plenty of quotes from famous speeches about race and race relations. Chris tells his best friend and campaign manager Greg he plans to beat Joey Caruso "by any means necessary," a clever nod to Malcolm X. Later, during a Q&A with the school body Caruso answers every question with a variation of Alabama governor George Wallace's infamous "segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" line from his 1963 inaugural speech. When asked what flavor of Jello should be in the cafeteria, he answers: "grape today, grape tomorrow, grape forever." When asked about handicap access, he just repeats the quote with "ramps" in place of "grapes." After swiping the speech Greg wrote for Chris and presenting it as his own at a school assembly, Caruso rattles off quotes from both Martin Luther King and Jesse Jackson, a stark contrast to his own racist outlook.

Every high school graduation speech is exactly the same chain of cliches and navel-gazing pabulum. This is why Conan O'Brien should deliver every commencement speech at every high school in the nation. He'd have to do some kind of molecular split in order to accomplish this, but I think it would be worth the scientific and ethical risks. Recently he gave the commencement speech at Stuybesant High School, and you can watch both parts here and here. There's plenty of Conan's signature humor, but he also offers some sage advice to the students, all of which are at that point when they feel they must have their entire life planned out right now. A truly great speech, and for you readers who are getting ready to graduate high school, I recommend you check it out.

Thanks to Tucker for the link.

Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane spoke to Harvard's graduating class last Wednesday, but it wasn't part of commencement. Instead, it was for Class Day, which takes place the day before graduation ceremonies and was created to be a more relaxing send off for seniors than the "real" ceremony. MacFarlane addressed the crowd as several of the characters he plays on the show, including Stewie, Peter, and Quagmire. MacFarlane didn't attend Harvard, but he told the crowd he had been secretly living among them. Sounds like a pretty cool speech, but I'm not sure anything can top Conan O'Brien's address to the Class of 2000.

[via TV Filter]