Today in TV History: The Golden Globes Went Into the Toilet

Of all the great things about television, the greatest is that it’s on every single day. TV history is being made, day in and day out, in ways big and small. In an effort to better appreciate this history, we’re taking a look back, every day, at one particular TV milestone. 

IMPORTANT DATE IN TV HISTORY: January 18, 1998

PROGRAM ORIGINALLY AIRED ON THIS DATE: The 55th Golden Globe Awards

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: The so-called “awards season” can get a bad rap. Sure, yes, it’s an orgy of spending — of cocktail parties and trophy presentations and other thinly-veiled publicity stunts all designed to stroke the egos of our richest and most fabulous citizens. It turns the art of movie-making into a crass grubbing for accolades. The people who win are the ones who kiss the most ass during the voting period. Studios essentially buy votes. The best movies and performances never win. We’ve heard it ALL.

Of course, the other side of that coin is that movie awards bring attention to the kinds of smaller, more artistic movies that don’t draw the same kinds of crowds that franchise blockbusters do. That despite coming up short of your (or my) personal standards of excellence, awards season purports to reward artistic excellence over box-office receipts. And most crucially of all, award shows are FUN. They are glamorous and shallow and disposable and FUN. And no award show is consistently as fun as the Golden Globes, which has famously attained the reputation of a big, fun, tipsy dinner among a few hundred of your most famous friends.

It’s unclear whether the Golden Globes had the reputation as a big drunk shindig before the 1997 awards, but they most certainly did after. You know your ceremony is officially off the chain when Jack Nicholson accepting an award from Madonna with a ziploc baggie on his hand (a nod to his germaphobic As Good As It Gets character?) and then proceeding to pay tribute to his fellow nominee Jim Carrey by talking out of his own butt was only the THIRD most outrageous moment of the evening.

Before that, though, Christine Lahti won her category — Best Actress in a TV Drama for Chicago Hope — but was in the bathroom when her name was called. So Robin Williams (who’d already lost the Supporting Actor in a movie award to Burt Reynolds for Boogie Nights that evening) had to jump up on stage and vamp for her.

But taking the cake that year was Ving Rhames, who won the Best Actor in a TV Movie/Miniseries award for playing the title role in Don King: Only in America. But when he got onto the stage, all he wanted to do was pay tribute to acting icon Jack Lemmon. And by “pay tribute” I mean “call him up to the stage and force him to accept the award on Rhames’ behalf.” It’s an altogether lovely moment that combines the unpredictability of the Globes with the generosity of an actor who was first and foremost a fan.

The flustered, grateful, bemused expression on Lemmon’s face here is only rivaled by the gallery of reaction shots, from Pam Grier to baby Matt Damon to Debbie Allen to Goldie Hawn (wiping away tears!). Hollywood ephemera at its finest.