This is the Last Laugh. I'm Matt Wilstein from The Daily Beast, and we are just a few days away from the 97th Annual Academy Awards. So I thought it would be fun this week to welcome to the podcast, a man who has written for more iconic Oscar ceremonies than anyone else,

the one and only Bruce Valanche.

If you happen to love both comedy and award shows as much as I do,

you probably know who Bruce Valanche is.

But if not, he is the writer responsible for Oscars monologues by Billy Crystal,

Whoopi Goldberg, Steve Martin, Ellen DeGeneres,

David Letterman, John Stewart, and more, all of whom we talk about in this episode.

Bruce's other big claim to fame, besides his on-screen appearances over the years on various

versions of Hollywood Squares, is his role as the writer of a series of disastrous television specials in the

1970s and 80s, starting with the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special in 1978. Those projects,

leading up to his equally doomed first time writing for the 1989 Oscars that, for some reason,

opened with a musical number featuring Snow White and

Rob Lowe, formed the basis of his new book.

It seemed like a bad idea at the time, which is available for pre-order now and officially

comes out next week.

Bruce shares so many insane stories from his many decades in Hollywood during this conversation.

But before we get into it, here is a clip from the first monologue he helped write for Billy Crystal

in 1991, which somehow contains a joke about the current president of the United States.

But what a night, you know, everybody wanted to be on the Oscars this year.

Madonna called me herself and she said, Bill, who do I have to fax to get on this show?

So she faxed me and I faxed her twice and she's here tonight.

Ladies and gentlemen, three, four, five.

...