During more than 20 appearances on Academy Awards shows from 1939 to 1978 as host, co-host or presenter, Bob Hope loved to tease the stars or joke about his own failure to win a regular Oscar.
Not that he didn't receive honorary Academy Awards over the years. When he received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1960, Hope joked that he felt out of place, "like Zsa Zsa Gabor at a PTA meeting."
Some of his other Oscar wisecracks:
— "What a wonderful thing, this benefit for David Selznick." (1940, when Selznick's "Gone With the Wind" won big.)
— "I'm very happy to be here for my annual insult." (1941)
— "How 'bout that air raid Wednesday? That was no air raid, that was John Barrymore coming home from W.C. Fields' house." (1942)
— "All over America, housewives are saying, "Honey, put on your shirt, Joan Crawford's coming over.' Television — that's where movies go when they die." (1953, the first year the ceremony was telecast.)
— "I like to be here in case one of these years they'll have one left over." (1953)
— "How about the pictures this year? Sex, persecution, adultery, cannibalism — we'll get those kids away from the TV sets yet." (1960)
— "This is envy time in the valley, and I'm the Jolly Green Emcee." (1965)
— "I never had a chance this year — I can't drink like Lee Marvin, grunt like Rod Steiger, can't enunciate like Sir Laurence Olivier — and when it comes to Richard Burton, I'm really in trouble." (1966)
— "I don't mind losing, but I hate to go home and explain to my kids how the actors I've been sneering at all year beat me out." (1967)
— "Welcome to award night! In my house, it's known as Passover." (1968)
— "Welcome to a show dedicated to the proposition that jealousy and envy shall not perish from the Earth." (1970)
— "And I just want to say, what a night — the furs, the jewels, the glamour. Looks like the opening of the Beverly Hills Taco Bell. . . . I haven't seen so much expensive jewelry go by since I watched Sammy Davis Jr.'s home sliding down Coldwater Canyon." (1978)
(Sources: "The Best Movie Trivia & Quiz Book Ever" by Malcolm Vance; "Inside Oscar" by Mason Wiley and Damien Bona)