With the Academy Awards just days away, we’ve already prepped you with a nominee cheat sheet and shared our predictions. But an important question still remains: Why are the Oscars called the Oscars?
Thanks to a new video from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, you can now sound like the smartest person at your Oscars party. Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne recounts the history of the prestigious golden statuette, revealing that while the first ceremony took place in 1929, the Oscar didn’t get its name till around 1935. Although three people claim to have dubbed the award, it was apparently columnist Sidney Skolsky who got bored of the nameless, shiny gold man and gave it the moniker derived from a vaudeville joke.
