Jo Koy Opens Golden Globes With Hit And Miss Monologue About Barbenheimer, Harry & Meghan, Bradley Cooper’s Nose And Barry Keoghan’s Penis: The Best & Worst

Greg Evans
·3-min read
Jo Koy Opens Golden Globes With Hit And Miss Monologue About Barbenheimer, Harry & Meghan, Bradley Cooper’s Nose And Barry Keoghan’s Penis: The Best & Worst

Stand-up comic Jo Koy did his best to bring laughs back to the Golden Globes – or at least back to the opening monologue – with jokes about Meryl Streep, Succession, Oppenheimer, Ryan Gosling, Harry & Meghan and even Hall & Oates.

He was occasionally successful.

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Singling out Saltburn‘s naked-dancing Barry Keoghan in the audience, Koy asked, “Where is your penis seated?”

That was one of the better zingers, so much so that Koy returned to the topic by solving the mystery of whatever happened to Bradley Cooper’s fake nose from Maestro: Watch Saltburn, he said. “That thing was dancing.”

Koy was on firmer turf with a punchline about Oppenheimer‘s length. The comic said he started watching the movie on New Year’s Eve, with a resolution to finish it in 2025.

Early in the monologue, Koy cautioned against high expectations: “I got this gig 10 days ago,” he told the audience. “You want a perfect monologue?”

“I wrote some of these [jokes] and they’re the ones you’re laughing at.”

Some of the jokes scored, including, well, the big punchline about Keoghan, and a funny aside about being dazzled by Barbie‘s beauty. “There’s just something about your eyes, Ryan.”

“Harry and Meghan Markle got paid millions for doing absolutely nothing – and that’s just by Netflix,” he told the crowd, who laughed in response. The camera zoomed in on the streaming service’s CEO, Ted Sarandos, after he cracked the joke. Both Harry and Meghan were not present at the ceremony.

A weirder (and less successful) joke was made about Kevin Costner and a cow, and more cringey was a reference to Robert De Niro’s pending new fatherhood. “Your last performance is going to be your greatest performance ever,” Koy said: “How did you get her pregnant at 80?” De Niro, at least, seemed to get a chuckle from the gibe.

Cringier still was his successful encouragement to get Meryl Streep to do the crossed-arms gesture from Wakanda.

Better was Koy’s imitation of his mother – a regular feature in his stand-up act – and how much she loves Streep. “She wins everything,” Koy said in his Filipino mom’s voice.

Another decent line – at least to everyone not Martin Scorsese – was Koy’s joke about Killers of the Flower Moon. “White people stole everyting!,” said Koy, whose father was white. “Not like 97%. You guys stole 100% of everything. You took the land, you took the oil, you took the premise of the movie.” A quick cut to the audience showed an unsmiling Scorsese.

More welcoming was Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos, who visibly chuckled when Koy said made a crack about the working habits of the Royal Family. “Harry and Meghan Markle got paid millions for doing absolutely nothing – and that’s just by Netflix.”

Maybe the best joke of the opening monologue was about Only Murders in the Building and a certain squabbling pop singing duo . “You don’t know whose side to be on. That’s how I feel about Daryl Hall and John Oates.”

Watch the monologue above.

Koy, the star of four Netflix stand-up comedy specials and the sitcom Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens, seems to have made a decided (and more or less successful) effort to bring the humor following last year’s more somber installment from host Jerrod Carmichael. Last January, as the Globes returned from a one-year hiatus following the headline-making controversy over the lack of Black members in the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, Carmichael took a subdued approach, at first encouraging quiet from the audience and eventually saying bluntly, “I’m here because I’m Black.”

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