Patton Oswalt: 'So nice to be here amongst the least worst people in Hollywood', Opening monologue, WGA West Awards - 2018

11 February, Beverly Hilton Hotel, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, USA

Good evening fellow Disney employees.

So nice to be here amongst the least worst people in Hollywood.

And also James Woods. Oh is he not here this year? he's not? Oh I wore nice shoes!

Oh,alright, I'm Patton Oswalt, and after an exhuastive six month investigation by the Writers Guild West and Writers Guild East, and all findings independently verified by a secret commission led by Ronan Farrow, and after passing a lie detector and DNA test, I've been chosen to be the host of tonight's WGA Awards.

We have three backups waiting in the wings. Just in case I ... misread the greenroom.

Right that was the long version of the joke, here's the shorter version we came up ... let's see if this one works:

I'm your host Patton Oswalt, or as Guillermo del Toro calls me, the shape of pudding, ha! Yes, pretty good? I owe my brother ten dollars.

What a breakthrough year it has been for wriiting! And I'm just talking about the New York Times and the Hollywood Reporter, folks.

This is my third year in a row hosting the WGA awards.

Just 97 more and I get syndication, folks.

By the way, look, I'm very happy to be back here hosting the WGA Awards. I would do this every year if you asked me, and I hope I'm not about to woke myself out of a job for a while, but given the current atmosphere, maybe get a female host next year. There are hilarious comedians and writers out there, get Morgan Murphy, get Apala Nantrilla, get the girls from Broad City! They'd be amazing.

I can always come back. I'm not going anywhere. I've plateaued, you can always get me.

Those guys are rocketing. Grab em while you can.

And I would also like to speak on behalf of all the awards show hosts when I say that hosting an awards show this year, is like hosting the worst murder mystery dinner ever. One of you is a murderer and that's not even the bad news.

It's really hard to believe that the actors and producers who yell at you every day turned out to be bad people! Can you believe that/

And I can't believve 'Handsmaid Tale' is nominated. That show is so unrealistic. I mean our government is not that organised.

Curb your enthusiasm is up for an award tonight.

Curb Your Enthusiasm premiered in 2000.= I can’t believe it’s been on for three seasons already.

It was a very rough year for Hollywood, but on the bright side, we managed to normalise Tonya Harding, and jerking off with peaches. So ...

So I’d just like to say, all my SAG friends have told me that Arnie would have got the nomination if he’d eaten that peach ... COM-MIT.

I’m going to wrap this up. We have a very very fun show.

Only to say, and I don’t want to get all maudlin, but, the world right now, needs writers.

More than ever, and I’m going to show you why. We have a concrete reason why.

I don’t know if you guys remember but during the 2008 Writers Guild strike, remember the networks were suddenly desperate for content,

‘yeah, I heard a little yeah ... yeah, I got my calves in shape’

But youi remember how desperate the networks were for content, so suddenly all the Hollywood producers, who had to make all their alimony payments, organised a huge summit meeting, just like at the beginning of The Warriors, and they realised that the best way to make shows without writers, was that you just point cameras at assholes. So the networks green lit a whole bunch of asshole filled reality shows, including a gaping shit shoot known as The Apprentice, and like a small malignant growth, inside the rectum of America’s sunbelt, began the unchecked ascent of Donald Trump.

So listen, to any producers watching. The next time you think about taking away writers jobs, or developing a show without a true scribe, I want you to imagine ... in fact I want you to close your eyes right now ... I want you to imagine President ... Theodore ... Nugent.

And never fuck with writers again.

And another thing ... for the love of god, please don’t reboot Barney Miller. That show was perfect. Do not reboot Barney Miller.

Now given the climate, the WGA thought it would be in poor taste to bring out some scantily clad women, to hand out the trophies, so instead tonight I present to you, the trophy maids ... [handmaid’s tale dress ups] The trophy maids will be handing out awards.

Fantastic, yes

Please give it up for Of William Goldman, and Of Gavin Pallone. There you go right there.

And then just to make sure there was no hint of sexual attraction on stage, the Guild hird me.

And while we understand you writers are generally seen but not heard, which is very unfair, we only have the room until 7.30. I’m sorry ... there’s a My Little Pony Convention, they signed on for it, the Bronies.

Oliver Stone: 'You don't have to fit in', Writers Guild of America - 2017

19 February 2017, Beverly Hilton Hotel, California, USA

It’d be remiss of me not to remind you, especially you younger writers, that you can be critical of your government and your society. You don’t have to fit in. It’s fashionable now to take shots at Republicans and Trump and avoid the Obamas and Clintons. But remember this: In the 13 wars we’ve started over the last 30 years and the $14 trillion we’ve spent, and the hundreds of thousands of lives that have perished from this earth, remember that it wasn’t one leader but a system, both Republican and Democrat.

And call it what you will, military industrial, security, money, media, complex.

It’s a system that has been perpetuated under the guise that these are just wars justifiable in the name of our flag that flies so produly over our lives.

Our country has become more prosperous for many but in the name of that wealth we cannot justify our system as a center for the world’s values. But we continue to create such war and chaos in the world.

No need to go through the victims, but we know we’ve intervened in more than 100 countries with invasion, regime change, economic chaos. Or hybrid war, soft power, whatever you want to call it, it’s war of some kind. In the end, it’s become a system leading to the death of this planet and the extinction of us all.

I’ve fought these people who practice war for most of my life. It’s a tiring game. And mostly you’ll get your ass kicked. With all the criticism and insults you’ll receive, and the flattery too, it’s important to remember, if you believe in what you’re saying and you can stay the course, you can make a difference.

I urge you to find a way to remain alone with yourself, listen to your silences, not always in a writer’s room. Try to find not what the crowd wants so that you can be successful, but try instead to find the true inner meaning of your life here on earth, and never give up on your heart in your struggle for peace, decency, and telling the truth.

Larry David: "I not only hate writing the shows, I hate all kinds of writing", WGA Awards, Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award - 2011

2 February 2011, East Coast ceremony, New York City, USA

Jason Alexander: I first encountered Larry David — this is true — at the Improv Comedy Club in New York City in the mid 1980s. The man was introduced as a comic. He lurched out onto the stage sweating and profoundly uncomfortable, launched into some diatribe about the improper use of the tu form over the usted form in the Spanish language, and after — I kid you not — a minute and a half of incomprehensible banter about "Et tu, Brute?," he accused the audience of being ignorant, euphemisms of the female anatomy, threw down his microphone, and stormed from the stage.

    To my amazement, less than a few years later, I would attain heights of fame and fortune I had never imagined by playing a character who was a thinly disguised alter-ego for that very same man. And I thank God for that blessing every day.

Larry David: Thanks Jason, it was really sweet of you to do this, although I have no doubt I'll be getting a call from you in the next few weeks asking me to do something very distasteful in return. "Larry, my wife's doing a save the poultry event, she'd like you to be the guest speaker. I think you owe me I gave you the Paddy Chayefsky Award."

I also want to thank my pal, the brilliant Larry Charles, for doing the thankless task of making that video. I don't know who the guy is he's talking about, but I'd like to meet him, sound very cool. Okay, to the matter at and. First off, I just like to say to Paddy Chayefsky, I'm really, really sorry. Please don't blame me, I had nothing to do with it. Apparently some of the same people who made the decisions about our last strike were also involved in this. So don't take it out on me.

And if it's any consolation, I won't put the award where anybody can see it. I'm thinking basement. So maybe when they come to fix the pipes, the plumber might spot it, and if he asks me what it is I'll just tell him it's from bowling. What's really ironic about this whole thing is that I hate writing. Nothing puts me to sleep faster than picking up a pen. Within minutes, I'm out cold.

I not only hate writing the shows, I hate all kinds of writing. Recommendations, thank you notes, excusing my daughter from school, condolence letters ... Oh those are the worst. Any expression of sympathy. I'd rather blow my own head off and make probably have to write them to me. And, of course, this speech.

As soon as I found out about the award, I immediately called the Guild and asked them what the shortest speech on record was for anyone who's ever been given this. Its ruined my life for the last two months. Not five minutes have gone by without me saying to myself, "You stupid schmuck. Why did you do this?" I actually started resenting the Guild for choosing me. It's almost like they did it on purpose just to accept me. It's like a sick joke. It's not funny.

I'm only sorry my mother is not alive to be here tonight because there's no doubt she would have stood up not shouted, "Larry? Are you sure? You're giving an award to Larry? Morty, they're giving an award to Larry." Her great dream for me was to become a mailman. Her dream. That's her best-case scenario. "If only my boy could deliver the mail. Please God, that's not asking too much, and wear a uniform."

She literally begged me to take a civil service test. "Please Larry, take the test." She was like Rod Steiger in On the Waterfront begging Brando to take the money in the cab. "Please take the test. Take the civil service test, take it, take it." I said, "No." She said, "What are you going to do?" And I really didn't know. At the time I was supporting myself by driving a limo for an old lady who was half blind and had no idea that I wasn't wearing the uniform and that the car was filthy.

I did that for a year, and then one night I went to the Improv, saw a bunch of comedians, and I thought, Jesus, theses people seem just like me. They're complete losers who do nothing and get up and talk about how miserable they are. Are you kidding? I can do that. And it had the bonus of sounding like a cool thing to say to impress women when they ask what I did, although I soon discovered that was not the case at all. I could have said I was a mailman and done just as poorly.

I told my parents about wanting to be a comedian and my mother said, "You're not funny, Larry. I've never heard you say anything funny." And my father backed her up, "She's right, she's right. You're not funny. Why do you think you're funny? You're not funny." So, I started doing it, but as Jason alluded to, I was not all that successful. My therapist at the time said I wasn't really temperamentally suited for it for the simple reason that if the audience didn't laugh I would scream and curse them.

"You stupid, fucking morons. You don't know anything!" I remember even walking the streets in New York looking for good spots to live in case I ever became homeless. I would mentally note them. Yeah, yeah, 44th between 5th and 6th. Good steam vent, there's an overhang. I got to remember this. I bombed all the time. Got heckled unmercifully. People threw things at me. I wallowed in self-pity. "Why me? Why? Why can't I do anything? I don't understand. It's not fair."

And then in 1988, Jerry Seinfeld asked me to develop a show with him. I'd never written a half hour before. I didn't even know the format. The number of pages, I had no idea what I was doing. I prayed for the show not to get picked up. Doing one was hard enough. How could I possibly do 22? It was impossible. I thought of all the half hours on television. All of the one hours. How did the writers do it week after week? Even the bad shows I was admiring, just for the fact that they got gone. When it got picked up I cried. I thought, "Are they insane? Why are they picking up this show? What is it?"

Then after a few weeks, I remember I was filling out a form in the doctor's office, and in the space next to occupation, I put in writer for the first time. That made me feel really smart. Oh, Jesus, I'm a writer. Holy shit, this is very cool. Although, who knows, maybe if I filled in mailman I would have felt just as good about it.

Now as much as it pains me, I'm going to be a little gracious, even at the risk of boring you. I have to thank Chris Albrect and Budd Frieman from the Improv, and Rick Newman from Catch a Rising Star, who consistently gave me spots in New York even though more often than not I turned the crowd into an angry mob. Rick Ludwin from NBC who stuck his neck out to get Seinfeld on the air. Of course Jerry Seinfeld, without whom, I'd probably be sitting on that steam vent on 44th street, screaming obscenities at passers by. Everything I wrote he improved.

I could so say the same for Alec Berg, Jeff Schaffer, and Dave Mandel, who've done such great work on Curb these last few years and the main reason I continue to do it. The remarkable Seinfeld cast. It's unbelievable. When I did these things in real life, I was scorned, mocked, and shunned. When they did it on the show, people laughed and loved them.

And the incredible Curb cast who helped me enact my revenge fantasies with such aplomb. Chris Albrect again, for putting Curb on the air and allowing a bald man to star in a comedy for the first time since Phil Silvers played Bilko. Of course, he is bald, so maybe it wasn't such a big deal. And the current HBO team of Richard Plepler, Mike Lombardo, and Sue Naegle, who give me whatever I want. I only hope I don't spoil my children the way HBO has spoiled me. And finally the writer's guild for this award.

But you know, there's a disturbing element surrounding this. I've noticed that whenever something good happens to me, it's usually followed by something terrible. And this thing has got disaster and doom written all over it. I mean it's a great honour but it's not worth getting hit by a bus. So, thank you Writer's Guild for the death sentence. I only hope I live a few more months to enjoy it. Thank you.