“It’s Great Not To Be Nominated!”

Today, while looking for something else entirely, I found this video.

And it is awesome.

In fact, if the modern Oscars had stuff like this, I’d probably watch ’em. All 137 hours.

OK, fine. I watch ’em anyway. So maybe I should say that if the modern Oscars had stuff like this, they’d actually be worth watching.

Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster perform “It’s Great Not To Be Nominated” at the 30th Academy Awards.

“Well, the best acting they’ve done this year, they’ve done tonight!”

Interestingly, both would eventually become Oscar-winners. Lancaster, who had already been nominated in the past, would win for Elmer Gantry only a few years later, while Douglas, who had also been nominated — just the year before, actually, for playing Van Gogh — would have to wait some 30+ years, eventually bringing home an honorary statue in 1996 for his “50 years as a creative and moral force in the motion picture community.” (Lansbury, Collins, and Wynter would try it the following year, but there would be no Oscars in their futures. Must have been a one-time thing.)

Oh, and as The Anchoress reminds me, let’s not forget Steve Lawrence and Sammy Davis Jr.’s “Not Even Nominated.” Great fun.

Attribution(s): Photos of Kirk and Burt courtesy of Getty Images, which allows the use of certain images “as long as the photo is not used for commercial purposes (meaning in an advertisement or in any way intended to sell a product, raise money, or promote or endorse something);” “Little Golden Boy” via karenfoleyphotography / Shutterstock.com