Conan O’Brien parodied a key scene from Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another to close out Sunday’s Oscars ceremony, culminating with a joking mention of MrBeast as his potential successor.
The pre-recorded bit, seen below, finds the comedian having some fun with the fate of Sean Penn’s OBAA character, Steven Lockjaw. Penn, notably, added a third Oscar to his roster on Sunday but declined to attend.
Toward the end of the film, which took home Best Picture on Sunday, Lockjaw appears to have been granted membership into the Christmas Adventurers Club, a secret society of white supremacists. However, as soon as Lockjaw begins to make himself comfortable in a new office space with a breathtaking view, he’s gassed and ultimately cremated.
O’Brien’s post-Oscars bit takes this scene and flips it as a commentary, of sorts, on the future of the Academy Awards broadcast. As announced ahead of this year’s ceremony, YouTube will have exclusive global rights to the Oscars starting in 2029. Instead of Christmas Adventurers Club admission, the two-time Oscars host is presented with the distinction of being made “host for life” in the sketch, only to then meet the same fate as OBAA’s Lockjaw while trapped in a state of apparent self-congratulatory pride.
MrBeast, whose name is more or less synonymous with YouTube, is then given the “host for life” title instead. To continue the joke, he later shared a screenshot from the sketch to social media.
Jokes aside, no official word has been shared as to who, exactly, might be taking the Oscars gig next. It’s not hard to imagine O’Brien returning for a third round, which would place him in the company of other three-time hosts, including Steve Martin and the late Jerry Lewis.