Jo Koy’s ‘Dream’ to Host Golden Globes Turns Into Comedy Nightmare

Jo Koy made the rounds promoting the Golden Globes this week, telling anyone who would listen that it was his childhood dream to host the show. Well, not specifically this show. An awards show. Like the Academy Awards or the Emmys or the Grammys or, well, wishers can’t be choosers. And when the Globes chose Koy to host — after publicly getting turned down by Chris Rock, Ali Wong, the Smartless guys (Will Arnett, Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes) and previous Globes champs Tina Fey and Amy Poehler — it didn’t give the guy much time to prepare. He was only announced as host a little over two weeks ago, a fact that Koy offered as a feeble excuse when his monologue started to bomb harder than Oppenheimer's baby.

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Things got off to a rocky start when Koy took the stage to have some fun with the stars. First up? Kevin Costner, whom Koy zinged with this punchline: “Kevin Costner’s never here. He’s like on a mountain with a cow or something.”

* sounds of crickets chirping *

It got worse from there. As the flop sweat kicked in, Koy moved on to a Meryl Streep joke: “You win every time!” Yep, that was the joke.

The show’s directors did Koy no favors. After a joke about Oppenheimer needing to be an hour longer, the cameras cut to a grimacing Robert Downey Jr. and Christopher Nolan. A gag about Barbie’s boobs (Koy apparently didn’t get the point of that movie) couldn’t elicit a smile from stone-faced Greta Gerwig and Ryan Gosling. 

When was the last time so many celebs grimaced at a host’s punchlines? But there they were — Harrison Ford, Selena Gomez and Taylor Swift might as well have been holding their noses. In fact, that’s exactly what Gomez seemed to be doing.

What do you do if you’re a comic and the jokes aren’t landing? If you said, “Get defensive and throw my writers under the bus,” then you and Koy see the same therapist. “Yo, I got the gig 10 days ago,” the comic protested. “You want a perfect monologue? Yo, shut up. I wrote some of these, and those are the ones you’re gonna laugh at.” He talked about the monologue “sucking” in real time, blaming his failures on the little time in which he had to prepare.

“This is so painful,” said my wife — more than once. 

To rub it in, several comics showed up in the first hour as presenters, effortlessly winning the laughs that were so hard for Koy to find. Ray Romano, Gabriel Iglesias, George Lopez and Jim Gaffigan had the place in stitches. Heck, even Jared Leto was funny. Jared Leto!

“Why did all those other comics turn down the show?” my wife wondered. “Couldn’t the Golden Globes find anyone better?” 

Well, they tried. And what happened to Jo Koy is why all the other comics said no. Hosting an awards show is almost always a no-win situation. Tonight, it was also a no-laugh one.