Beatty and Faye Dunaway's envelope had the card for the winner of Best Actress, which Emma Stone had just won. Beatty knew something was wrong, but he didn't know what. So he gave the card to Dunaway who pronounced LaLa Land the winner of Best Picture.

Apparently, they didn't see the front of the envelope, which says the award they are holding is for Best Actress. Would reading glasses have helped?

Really, why didn't Beatty just say, hey, we have the wrong envelope? Who knows. Anyway, after all the LaLa Land people came to the stage, and several accepted the award in emotional speeches, someone told them they hadn't won. The head guy for LaLa Land told the audience, "This is a not a joke," in a tone reminiscent of "This is not a drill." He added "We didn't win. Moonlight won" and he held up the winning card showing Moonlight, with "Best Picture" in tiny letters at the bottom, to the camera and then he graciously walked the award over to the Moonlight head guy, who was standing right off to the side with their group.

Warren Beatty then took the microphone and wanted to tell people what happened. Jimmy Kimmel, said in a half joking tone, "Warren, what did you do?" Warren said his card read "Emma Stone, LaLa Land" which was why he stalled and looked at the audience and Faye a long time before handing her the card. He said he didn't do it to be funny. (He had just seen Emma Stone win for Best Actress -- why didn't he (and Dunaway) realize they had the wrong card? Did they not have reading glasses, which they probably needed to see the tiny print showing the name of the award under the larger name of the winner? An award card for Best Picture would not list only only one actor. And the front of their envelope said "Best Actress in a Leading Role.")

The stunned group from Moonlight then took the stage but the head guy was too flummoxed to give a speech, other than to say that during the past months while touring, they had become close with the LaLa Land group and the guy that walked the award over was a class act (which he was.) Then a woman from Moonlight spoke and he returned with another even shorter speech thanking the audience (and presumably viewers) for choosing Moonlight (of course, it wasn't viewers or the audience, but the Academy who chose Moonlight.)

Jimmy Kimmel, looking like he wanted to throw up, came back to the microphone and said, "I always knew somehow I'd screw this up."

I knew I would screw this show up, I really did. Thank you for watching. I’m back to work tomorrow night on my regular show. I promise I’ll never come back. Good night!”

So here's the question: Who had the real winner envelope with Moonlight that made it's way to the head LaLa Land guy while they were still on stage accepting the award? Were Warren and Faye given a duplicate of the Best Actress envelope or the already opened envelope someone had put down backstage after Emma accepted her award?

Update: This article says it was the Price Waterhouse people who discovered the mistake while Beatty and Dunaway were onstage and that Emma Stone still had her envelope. That would mean there were two Best Actress envelopes and someone gave Beatty/Dunaway the duplicate.

In any event, Steve Harvey didn't suffer any permanent reputational damage, and either will Warren Beatty or Jimmy Kimmel.

One thing that struck me though was how many presenters seemed to be ad-libbing their remarks. Remember John Travolta at the Golden Globes who said he couldn't see the teleprompter, the writing was too small? I sensed a lot of that tonight. Either people were too vain to use eyeglasses, and forgot their lines, or they skipped the rehearsal and didn't realize how difficult it would be to see the prompter.

The Oscars have begun. Here's a thread to discuss them.

ACLU ribbons were a big hit -- many of the stars wore them.

Some red carpet photos that don't take too long to load. The OJ show won an Oscar (since when do Oscars give awards for TV shows? Since they are called "documentaries." To qualify, the 8 hour series aired in theater for a week in May.) (I didn't see it, I initially confused it with the American Crime Story show which I didn't care for.) The man who accepted the award left no doubt about the bias of the show -- with his shout-out to victims and the Brown and Goldman families. OJ may get out of prison this year. He won't be broke (he has his pension which creditors can't attach.) It's about time. He's done 9 years, more than enough for the crimes he was convicted of. (He's still not guilty of killing his ex-wife. The civil judgment doesn't erase the not guilty criminal verdict.)

Back to the Oscars (pretty boring so far.) (Added: But what an ending, see the update at top.)