Jimmy Kimmel’s Funniest Oscar Moments: A Tweet to Donald Trump Earns More Than 200,000 Retweets Within Hours
Infamous Twitter user Donald Trump was uncharacteristically quiet during this year’s Academy Awards telecast, and host Jimmy Kimmel was having none of it.
During one of the most inspired moments of Kimmel’s stint Sunday night as Oscar emcee, Kimmel came out on stage, phone in hand, and decided to post a Tweet directed at Trump.
“We are more than two hours into the show and Donald Trump hasn’t tweeted at us once. I’m starting to get worried about him,” he said. The result was this Tweet:
Hey @realDonaldTrump u up?
— Jimmy Kimmel (@jimmykimmel) February 27, 2017
Within hours, the Tweet had already earned nearly 230,000 retweets, and more than 400,000 likes.
A separate Tweet referencing Meryl Streep, featuring the hashtag #MerylSaysHi, was sent directly to Trump and has been retweeted more than 188,000 times:
— Jimmy Kimmel (@jimmykimmel) February 27, 2017
The Twitter bit was one of several moments from this year’s Oscar telecast that earned Kimmel high marks from critics. Another segment that played well: An Academy Awards-themed edition of his “Jimmy Kimmel Live” franchise “Mean Tweets.” Watch:
In the Kodak Theatre, at least, the Oscar audience was probably most appreciative of the moment when Kimmel offered theater candy, parachuted down from the ceiling:
But as IndieWire TV critic Ben Travers noted, the ultimate highlight of the night – well, until the messy Best Picture switcheroo that will be discussed for years to come – came when Kimmel paid tribute, tongue-in-cheek, to the 2011 Matt Damon feature “We Bought a Zoo.”
All night, the Oscars telecast featured clips of stars paying tribute to the films that meant the most to them (such as Seth Rogen, discussing his love of “Back to the Future”). That setup made this gag rewarding: Kimmel, in one final segment, perfecting mocking “Zoo” and his faux nemesis, Matt Damon:
At the end of the night, after the “Moonlight”/”La La Land” debacle, Kimmel ended the show by apologizing – and joking that the flub was his fault. But in a way, his deft ability to come in and smooth things over perhaps saved what could have been a complete disaster of an ending.
Earlier on Sunday, Kimmel posted a Tweet of his daughter fist-bumping him in his Oscars dressing room; that’s how we felt after an eventful night watching this year’s telecast.
👊🏼#Oscars pic.twitter.com/5q892wEYQD
— Jimmy Kimmel (@jimmykimmel) February 26, 2017
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