Jo Koy kicked off his first-ever Golden Globes hosting gig Sunday with a monologue that referenced the size of “Saltburn” star Barry Keoghan’s penis and weight-loss drug Ozempic in front of top Hollywood talent, drawing a mixed response for his jokes.
“Some I wrote, some other people wrote,” the standup comedian said after one of his lines fell a little flat. “Yes, I got the gig 10 days ago! You want a perfect monologue? Yo, shut up. You’re kidding me right? Slow down, I wrote some of these and they are the ones you are laughing at.”
Koy was announced as this year’s host on Dec. 21, just down to the wire at less than a month out from the Jan. 7 airdate of the awards show on CBS.
One big laugh for Koy came when he joked about “Saltburn” star Barry Keoghan’s lengthy nude dancing scene, dropping multiple references to the impressive size of his character’s genitals in the film, asking Keoghan from the stage: “Where is your penis seated? Down front? That was the real star of the show.”
The comedian worked in jokes about many of the top titles nominated at the awards show, including “The Color Purple,” which he says is “what happens to your butt when you take Ozempic.”
Koy noted “Oppenheimer” and “Barbie” are competing tonight in the newly created best cinematic and box office achievement category: “‘Oppenheimer’ is based on the 721-page Pulitzer Prize-winning book about the Manhattan Project — and ‘Barbie’ is about a plastic doll with big boobies.”
For “Barbie,” Koy said, “it was kind of weird being attracted to a plastic doll” while watching the Margot Robbie-led movie from Greta Gerwig, quickly adding, “just something about your eyes, Ryan,” while staring at Robbie’s Ken, Ryan Gosling.
“The key moment in ‘Barbie’ is when she goes from perfect beauty to bad breath, cellulite and flat feet — or what casting directors call character acting,” Koy said, drawing some groans. (That particular joke is what prompted his “got the gig 10 days ago” response.)
“I loved ‘Oppenheimer,’ I’ve just got one complaint: It needed another hour. I feel like it needed some more backstory,” Koy said of Christopher Nolan’s hit. “My New Year’s resolution for 2024 is to finish ‘Oppenheimer’ in 2025.”
Koy said the lesson he took away from Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” was “white people stole everything.” “Not like 97%, you guys stole 100% of everything. You took the land, you took the oil, you took the premise of the movie,” Koy said, adding, after a mixed response from the crowd: “What, that was your premise? That’s hilarious, I don’t care. It’s just that the room is really white.”
