The Other Oscars Controversy: Omitting Bob Saget And Others From The 'In Memoriam' Segment

While the lion’s share of post-Oscar telecast talk centered on Will Smith slapping Chris Rock when the latter made a joke at the expense of Smith’s wife, actress Jada Pinkett Smith, a growing pool of anger is percolating over what was absent from the show — specifically, the inclusion of iconic talents from both sides of the camera who were omitted from the telecast’s “In Memoriam” tribute to creative artists who passed away during the past 12 months.

What Happened: This year’s “In Memoriam” segment ran 6 minutes and 30 seconds and included three moments that featured standalone tributes to Sidney Poitier, Ivan Reitman and Betty White.

The absence of Bob Saget from the tribute seemed to spark the greatest outrage among viewers. Although Saget was best known for his television work on “America’s Funniest Home Videos” and “Full House,” he won a Student Academy Award while attending Temple University for the documentary “Through Adam’s Eyes” and worked as either an actor or director on roughly a dozen feature films.

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Saget’s absence from the segment generated headlines across hundreds of mainstream media news outlets — and even partisan rivals such as the left-leaning The Daily Beast and the right-focused New York Post shared common ground in berating the show's producers for Saget’s omission.

Social media was also ablaze with unhappiness, with attorney Mike Mulia took to Twitter TWTR going so far as to declare, “Cancel the #oscars for not mentioning Bob Saget in the Memoriam”

What Else Happened: Among the other notable film artists absent from the “In Memoriam” segment were, in alphabetical order, Keith Allison, Ed Asner, Carleton Carpenter, Tim Considine, Michael Constantine, Alex Cord, Lou Cutell, Arlene Dahl, John Gabriel, Willie Garson, Larry Gelman, Arlene Golonka, Howard Hesseman, Dwayne Hickman, Basil Hoffman, Sally Ann Howes, Conrad Janis, Tommy Kirk, Jimmy Lydon, Norm MacDonald, Gavin MacLeod, Michael Nesmith, Charles Robinson, William Smith, Peter Scolari, Chuch Vennera, Monica Vitti, Cara Williams and Jane Withers.

This isn't the first time that the Academy Awards telecast came under criticism for “In Memoriam” omissions, with the Academy traditionally using its website to cite those who were not mentioned during the ceremony.

This year, however, criticism was also targeted at how the segment was staged, with a large chorus positioned in front of a screen showing photographs of the recently deceased while offering supremely upbeat music that seemed out of sync with the moment’s solemnity.

Author Fred Velez found the staging dubious, tweeting, “In my opinion the 2022 Oscars In Memoriam was very poorly done, the singers who were in front of the screen, which was far in the background, were a distraction from those supposedly being honored, and in essence, weren’t getting properly honored at all.”

The Oscars were telecast on Sunday on ABC, a division of the Walt Disney Co. DIS.

Photo: Bob Saget sharing a hug with Snoop Dogg during a 2014 concert. Photo courtesy Pemberton Music Festival / Flickr Creative Commons