10 Times That The Golden Globes Proved Themselves To Be Way More Fun To Watch Than The Oscars

Lahti was probably not the favorite to win Best Actress in a Television Drama for the fourth season of Chicago Hope, but that’s still no excuse for her to not be ready when her category was called. As Michael J. Fox read her name, though, she was nowhere to be found. Robin Williams jumped up on stage to vamp for a few moments, as he is most uniquely qualified to do, before Lahti came scurrying up from the back. As for her explanation, honesty was the best policy: “I was in the bathroom, Mom! What can I say?”

If any year really kick-started the Globes’ reputation as a boozy free-for-all, it was this one. After Lahti heard her name called from the loo, Ving Rhames was the winner for Best Actor in a TV Movie for playing the title role in Don King: Only in America. It was a little surprising to see the man behind Marsellus Wallace turn out to be such a teddy bear onstage, but things got really fun when he decided to give his award away to his co-nominee Jack Lemmon … and then wouldn’t take no for an answer. It was both an incredibly sweet moment and a slightly crazy one, but Lemmon’s befuddled reaction was worth it.

With award-magnets Tom Hanks, Ian McKellen, and Nick Nolte in his category, Jim Carrey had to be thinking that his Best Actor in a Drama nomination for The Truman Show was reward enough. When he won, in a most welcome surprise, Carrey summed up the dissonance of him winning in the drama category the best way he knew how: “It’s gonna be so hard to talk out of my ass after this.” Carrey would win another Globe the next year, this time in Comedy, but he was passed over for an Oscar nomination both times.

Foster was the recipient of the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2013, the Globes’ lifetime achievement honor. And Foster’s life and career was certainly worth honoring. She’d been through more than most, with the child stardom and the burden of the John Hinkley thing. But when Foster got her speech going, one aspect of her life that had heretofore seemed to be off limits was apparently eking its way to the surface, For years, Foster’s long-rumoured lesbianism was basically an open secret. She wasn’t out, but how “in” was she either? Still, Foster sure sounded like she was ramping up to some kind of public acknowledgment. Only she didn’t. And then she maybe did! Or she was saying it without having to say it? Or she was saying it while wrapping it inside a shell of finger-wagging about reality TV? It remains one of the most fascinating awards show speeches ever, if only as an example of how being truly honest in Hollywood is not as easy as it sounds, and sometimes actors really do need writers.

It cannot be said enough: Meryl Streep gives a fantastic Golden Globes speech. It’s a good thing, too, because she’s done it so much. She’s won EIGHT Golden Globes in her lifetime, and she’s managed to really perfect the artform. Her speech when she won for 2006’s The Devil Wears Prada was a master class of graciousness and humor and a bit of rabble-rousing thrown in to taste. In that speech, she shouted out not only her co-nominees but a whole bunch of actresses who were great that year. When she won for The Iron Lady, she did the same thing. She just landed on some truly wild pronunciations for some of them. For the record, Adepero Oduye (ah-duh-PARE-oh oh-DOO-yay) and Mia Wasikowska (wah-suh-KOW-skuh) were probably too elated by their Meryl shout-outs to give a damn. (Though Tilda Swinton may hold a grudge for getting called “Gilda.”)

Emma Thompson is an utter delight. This isn’t news. When she won the Globe for writing the screenplay adaptation for 1995’s Sense and Sensibility, she took to the stage armed with a piece of paper. But oh! Before you start to roll your eyes that even our Emma has succumbed to the listed-names-on-paper speech, she delivered a delightfully written speech about what Jane Austen herself might have made of the night’s festivities at the “Golden Spheres.”

The best and the brightest stars are usually saved for presenting the Best Picture award. When it came time to hand out the statue that would end up going to Ridley Scott’s Gladiator, producer Dick Clark gave the honors to screen legend Elizabeth Taylor. Not to cast any aspersions on the late Ms. Taylor, but she wouldn’t be the first actress to have knocked back a few too many by evening’s end. Whatever was the case, Taylor got a bit confused by the prompter and the envelope, and it seemed for a few breathless seconds that she was going to read the winner before reading the nominees. Which in the grand scheme of things means literally nothing, but for someone who cares about awards-show protocol (hello!), this was a barely averted disaster. I wasn’t alone either — there’s a gasp in the audience when she gets close to reading the envelope. Say it with me now: “GLAAADIATOR!”

The short-lived ABC drama series Commander in Chief didn’t last past its first season, but it will live on forever in history anyway. No, not for its groundbreaking depiction of the nation’s first female POTUS. No, it’s for the speech star Geena Davis gave when she won Best Actress in a TV Drama. This speech is a huge reason why we need to have Geena Davis working far more than she is today.

The 2008 Hollywood writers’ strike was a watershed moment for writers and studios … compensation … streaming video … and whatnot … so forth. Honestly, I don’t know. What I do know is that it meant that the Golden Globe ceremony for the 2007 awards was summarily cancelled. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association still voted, of course, and the winners were announced, but they were announced on a gussied-up episode of Access Hollywood. And there were some pretty big upsets that year! Atonement beat No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood for Best Picture! (It deserved to beat one of them; argue amongst yourselves as to which one.) Also, up until Jon Hamm won the Emmy this past September, this was the only major award that Hamm ever won for playing Don Draper. And there wasn’t a ceremony!

By 2008, one of the more universally accepted truths in Hollywood was that Kate Winslet was overdue for an Oscar. She was still young, of course, but she’d been on the scene since 1994, got her first Oscar nomination in 1995, and had received four more since then. But no wins. Everybody was wondering “Why hasn’t Winslet won one?”  In 2008, her chances looked better than ever, with the tony relationship drama Revolutionary Road and the Holocaust-themed The Reader. When it came time for the Globes, the Hollywood Foreign Press decided not to chance it, voting Winslet for the win in both lead (Revolutionary Road) and supporting (The Reader) categories.