Conan O’Brien and his head writer Mike Sweeney revealed on the former’s podcast that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences refused to let them add clothes to an Oscar statuette. The promo video featured O’Brien and a 9-foot-tall Oscar as a domestic couple, with plans for O’Brien to vacuum and the statuette to do chores.
The Academy told O’Brien, “Oscar can never be horizontal” and that they are always naked. Sweeney added that if O’Brien wanted to put an apron on the statuette, it was also not allowed.
O’Brien had originally planned a larger-scale spoof of Billy Crystal’s annual tradition at the Oscars. The sketch would have seen him crawling out of Demi Moore’s backside and poking fun at all the nominated movies. However, due to time constraints, only a part of the bit made it into the show.
The original idea also involved O’Brien popping up in “Dune: Part Two” as himself, but the producers had trouble getting rid of his green face makeup for the parody sketch.
Source: https://variety.com/2025/film/news/conan-obrien-scrapped-oscars-opening-movie-parody-1236336452