Jimmy Kimmel takes a trip with Weird Barbie in new Oscars promo

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We’re still a full month out from the Oscars ceremony on March 10. Jimmy Kimmel is hosting it for the second year in a row and fourth time in total. This year’s nominees included some pretty notable snubs for Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig with Barbie. It was a whole thing that took over Internet discourse for a few days. This week, Kimmel released a new Barbie-themed Oscars promo that gave a nod to Gerwig’s snub in a fun way. The premise is Kimmel gets lost on his way to hosting the ceremony and ends up in Barbieland. I won’t spoil it too much for you but Dame Helen Mirren narrates it and Kate McKinnon’s Weird Barbie (who else lol) acts as Jimmy’s guide, helping him get back to Oscarsland. You can watch it below.

The 2024 Oscars host has enlisted the help of the Barbie cast as he gears up to host film’s biggest night next month. In the first promo for this year’s ceremony, which aired on Jimmy Kimmel Live Monday night, Helen Mirren narrates the tale of a man (Kimmel) lost on his way to the Oscars. Having landed in Barbieland, he asks for help from Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon), who takes him through all of the Best Picture nominees to get to “Oscarsland.”

The duo travels through nominees Poor Things, Maestro, and Oppenheimer, where they run into Matt Damon’s character and eventually run him over. (A new slant to the decades-long gag in which Kimmel has made a tradition of ending his broadcasts with, “Apologies to Matt Damon, but we ran out of time,” even though Damon was not scheduled to appear on the show.)

Once they arrive in Los Angeles, America Ferrera offers an inspirational monologue to calm Kimmel’s nerves — much like her character Gloria’s viral speech in the film.

Even Ryan Gosling comes along for the ride while wearing a Kenough sweatshirt and toting a bag of In-N-Out, which he says is a “cool social media trend, where you get it before the Oscars.”

But when Kimmel says the trend is to have it after you’ve won the Oscar, Gosling says, “Well, that’s not going to happen. Good thing Greta’s got director in the bag.” A sly, if painful reminder for fans that Barbie director Greta Gerwig was snubbed for Best Director, despite the film becoming the No. 1 movie of the year at the box office, grossing more than $1.4 billion, and earning critical acclaim.

Leading lady Margot Robbie was also overlooked for the Best Actress category. Barbie is still nominated for eight awards at the Oscars, including Best Picture, with Gosling and Ferrera both nominated for their supporting performances.

[From ET Online]

Clocking in at just under five minutes, the promo is a little bit long, but honestly, I loved it. I thought it was cute and funny and appreciated that they addressed the Barbie snub situation with humor. It was awesome to see some of the cast back and interacting with each other. Kimmel and McKinnon played off of one another perfectly (“And you find GPS threatening to your masculinity?” lmao). America’s speech and Jimmy’s response was clever, and Ryan’s sweatshirt and In-N-Out joke made me laugh out loud. It took me a second though to realize that America and Ryan were playing themselves. I could have done with a little bit less screaming at the end. Oh, and the Matt Damon joke absolutely took me out. Their pretend feud has always cracked me up. I’m looking forward to seeing what Jimmy and his team come up with next.