ABC TV Red Carpet Pre Show 2024

[Terry Monohan]

I have watched the Academy Awards Oscar show live each year for the last 60 years. This year I was not able to watch the big Hollywood live event Oscar presentation. Many years ago we cut the cable and satellite rip off fees, Living in San Francisco CA we can watch over 100 free TV channels including all the networks by just using a over the air small indoor HD antenna. The image and Dolby digital sound is better then cable.

This year we were visiting friends in the Santa Cruz mountains about 90 minutes South of SF. They can not receive any TV air reception in the mountain areas. They refuse to pay for the cable TV pirates way overpriced monthly fees. I new before my weekend trip that I may not be able to watch the ABC live Oscar feed at 4 PM Sunday. I was told the streaming service Hulu would carry the Oscar show. Our mountain hosts signed up for Hulu $ Sunday morning so we could watch the Oscar show on ABC thru their Roku box Wi Fi.


This was not the case. They had the Hulu ABC 1 to 4 PM live feed from the red carpet that we watched then at 4 PM when the Oscar opening was to start from the Hollywood Dolby Theatre with Jimmy all went dark. No live feed of this years Oscars show on Hulu. After searching all the Hulu and ABC Roku sites the show did not come up anywhere. Hulu wanted more money to watch the live Academy Awards show..

I was very upset and should have stayed in SF to see the movie show of the year over the air for free. The lame ABC Red carpet live pre Oscar show was full of ads and even for the first time inner ads like QVC for a cheap Hollywood make up kit.

Many of the prime A list stars skipped the ABC Red carpet talk this year and went to some other live coverage outlets to talk and show off what they were wearing or just went into the Dolby Theatre. With commercials every 5 minutes for over 3 hours I think some the Hollywood stars are getting wise when they are not being paid by Disney's ABC to go before their cameras and ABC is selling so much advertising spots for their live Red carpet ABC LA coverage.

What is so strange I don't know why Disney's ABC is being so tight in letting people watch one of the biggest shows they have each year that has plenty of commercial ad time for the many movie loving viewers that don't get cable TV or live in a big city with over the air coverage. Many film fans have streaming now on their internet computers and home TV's. The robbers that run all these many streaming services are getting way too money hungry. Just like the cable TV thieves on line customers are starting to cut back on all the internet channels that keep on raising the prices.

One good thing I was finely able to watch the whole Oscar 2024 show recorded a day late today Monday on Hulu at my friends in the Santa Cuz mountains. It was a great show this year and we enjoyed It even a day late.

Next year I won't be traveling Oscar day. Maybe Disney will sell ABC someday and the new owners won't be so stingy.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

All I can say about the Oscars show is that it still sucks. I hadn't bothered to watch one in five or six years, and it is still the same mess, if not a bigger mess than it was the last time I watched it. The only good part was when Kimmel riled up a certain ex-Pres. More pre-show stuff was broadcast this time, that was more interesting than the show itself. It aptly displayed how every one has aged and how much botox they had squirted into their faces to try and hide the aging. I'll no doubt skip the next five or six years before I watch it again. IMHO the Academy Technical awards are the only ones handed out that have any real meaning... This years show gets a 1-1/2 star rating!

[Randy Stankey]

I hadn't bothered to watch one in five or six years...

What? The Oscars? I didn't even know it was on.

[Martin Brooks]

All I can say about the Oscars show is that it still sucks. I hadn't bothered to watch one in five or six years, and it is still the same mess, if not a bigger mess than it was the last time I watched it. The only good part was when Kimmel riled up a certain ex-Pres. More pre-show stuff was broadcast this time, that was more interesting than the show itself. It aptly displayed how every one has aged and how much botox they had squirted into their faces to try and hide the aging. I'll no doubt skip the next five or six years before I watch it again. IMHO the Academy Technical awards are the only ones handed out that have any real meaning... This years show gets a 1-1/2 star rating!

If you didn't watch past shows, how do you know they were bad? I actually thought this year's show was quite good, but different strokes for different folks. IMO, Kimmel was decent (but not hysterically funny), having a group of past winners come out to talk about and award the Best Actress and Best Actor categories was very classy. The musical numbers were okay. The Barbie number was pretty exuberant and entertaining even if one didn't see the film (I didn't). The tribute to those who have died was sort of okay (they need to stop having dancers and the like and just focus (sic) on the images of the deceased) except for the disgusting ending where they flashed a large group of names that were too small to read for too little time.
Everyone has aged? Gee, who would have thought that? I don't know who you saw (I only casually watched part of the pre-show), but most of the nominees were pretty young and don't look like they used Botox. It's not like a lot of "old Hollywood" is around to show up anymore.

Nominated for Best Actress was Emma Stone (who won), Annette Bening, Lily Gladstone, Sandra Hüller and Carey Mulligan. All pretty young except for Annette Bening, who is 66 and looks fine for her age. She has thin lips, so no Botox there. It does look like she might have had her cheeks filled, but that's it. Nominated for Best Supporting Actress was Da'Vine Joy Randolph (who won), Emily Blunt, Danielle Brooks, America Ferrera and Jodie Foster. Foster is by far the oldest at 60 and I think she looked fine as well and much younger than how she looked on the recent True Detective streaming series, where they made her look older or far more worn than she actually is. Now on the red carpet, there was what appeared to be a lot of breast implants, but so what? There always has been.

Schwarzenegger has obviously had work done some years ago. I didn't really notice it in any other males who appeared but there were probably some who had something done. But again...so what? Whether it's ego or in order to keep working, they do what they feel they need to do.

The show has almost always had a problem in that the producers seem afraid of the very movies that they're awarding. They don't seem to want to show much of the actual films. I remember when they showed Chuck Workman's montage of great movie clips "Precious Images" and I believe they showed another one which was a montage of great movie lines. That was fantastic, but I bet they would never do the equivalent today.
The critics actually rated this year's show pretty highly - better than any Oscar show since the pandemic I would say and IMO, it was probably better than any Oscars since the last time Billy Crystal hosted. But again, different strokes for different folks. People expect awards show to be something that they aren't. They're always going to be somewhat boring because it's just people coming up to a stage to collect an award and give a speech that's just like a million other speeches. There's no way to change that. It's like complaining about a western because it's a western.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Years back, I watched them until I felt I had seen three really waste of time shows and then stopped watching. Anyway, three strikes and they're out. I'd rather watch old reruns of Green Acres.The show today is like a giant Botox display. But you can bet it generated a lot of biz for those expensive Hollywood plastic surgeons. Anyway, always hear from friends and others in the Biz that they also felt they wasted time watching the shows. I'll check back in another three and see if they have swept up the mess yet!

I've run into Arnold in Ketchum, ID a few times, almost mowed Jamie Lee Curtis in the food store there...Arnold always looks the same, as does Bruce Willis... I used to service his theater (The Liberty) in Hailey, ID. Demi signed the checks back them... I think John Eickoff installed the gear there originally. Of course, it's not a theater since film vanished, but they still do live stuff there. He also has a fairly large estate there. Anyway, enough about the Oscars. I've more important things to do here.