Note: Fannie Cranium will make her long-awaited Funny Names Blog return (with a special musical number and a special introduction) on Wednesday. – Dave
Sunday night, as you may have heard, marked the 85th Academy Awards ceremony, watched by many in fancy Oscar parties with elaborate bingo cards looking for a Tommy Lee Jones scowl to complete their card. OK, so maybe that was just me and Dave, but that counts as “many” to me.
The Great American Beard-Off of 2013. These guys win by virtue of participating.
The night saw glamour and glory in the usual amounts, but more importantly, the ceremony was very well attended by funny named people. This, after all, is the Blog of Funny Names, and that is what we really care about.
The night’s big winner of course was Benjamin Geza Affleck-Boldt, who lifted the Best Picture award for his third feature directing effort Argo. He is sometimes also known by the name of Ben Affleck, or “that guy in the bearded-handsome-off with Clooney”. Whoever wins, the ladies have already won.
Before he won his first Oscar for co-writing Good Will Hunting in 1998, he directed a short film called I Killed My Lesbian Wife, Hung Her on a Meathook, and Now I Have a Three-Picture Deal with Disney. It’s not great, but he was 21 when he made it, and that’s pretty impressive to me. The title’s pretty good too. You can watch the film here.
Other Best Picture nominees included the French film Amour, which counts Veit Heiduschka among its producers, while the funnily-named Django Unchained was produced by Reginald Hudlin. That film also features characters with the following names :
- Calvin J. Candie
- Broomhilda von Shaft
- Spencer “Big Daddy” Bennett
- Butch Pooch
- Lara Lee Candie-Fitzwilly
- Big Fred
So yes, that film is forever ingrained in our hearts.
Django was also nominated for the award for best sound editing, a job done by a man named Wylie Stateman. Unfortunately he did not take home the award, but gladly it still went to one funny named recipient in Paul N.J. Ottoson.
Kirby Dick, actually a pretty cool guy and accomplished documentarian. Watch his film This Film is Not Yet Rated. He’s got gumption.
The Oscar for Best Documentary was claimed by Searching For Sugar Man, directed by Simon Chinn and Malik Bendjelloul, names that also win our Best Documentary Filmmaker Nominated for an Oscar This Year Award.
No wait, one of the other nominees is called Kirby Dick. That’s definitely better. Definitely.
Elsewhere, the award for Best Editing, a concept wholly foreign to the Blog of Funny Names writing team, was awarded to William Goldenberg. That’s not really a funny name per se, but we’re big Bill Goldenberg fans here at Funny Names HQ and just wanted to mention him. So there. He also beat a man named Crispin Struthers in the category, which is a pretty great name.
So that’s our Academy Award rundown from the Funny Names perspective. I should probably still mention that Renee Zellweger is still a funny name, and my wife couldn’t get over how she doesn’t look at all like Renee Zellweger anymore. Which is kind of true, but hey, so it goes.
Is Quentin Tarantino a funny name? Let us know your thoughts and tell me which silly names I missed in the comments!
The Blog of Funny Names 
Quentin Tarantino IS a funny name!
Also, for those who haven’t heard, we got 51 hits in 15 minutes for “renee zellweger squinty eyes”-related searches after her appearance on stage. *tear* it makes me so proud!
You always were the sentimental sort, Dave. For page hits at least.
Is Fannie’s special musical number going to involve Channing Tatum ballroom dancing?!? *amb crosses fingers*
Channing (and his Oscars dance partner, Charlize Theron) have pretty funny names, so it’s not like I have ulterior motives for wanting to see him, or anything …
Of course not. Heaven forbid Amb have ulterior motives! (Now let me concentrate… I’m leaving for a UCSD medical school interview in 40 mins!)
Sending you so much luck! (but you won’t need it 🙂 )
Sorry Amb, Dave’s right, there won’t be any Channing homage in tomorrow’s post. Maybe another time.
Quite alright, my friend. Channing and I can hang out later. I’m looking forward to your post tomorrow! 😀
My work Web Blocker will not allow me to search for “Kirby Dick” but it will allow “Quentin Tarantino.” This puts their names in completely different classes.
Haha, I suppose it does 🙂 Both of those classes appear to be good ones, though.
I feel this is a very good research method for determining whether a name is sufficiently funny. Good tip.
Must improve my research techniques–had no idea Ben Affleck had a funny name 0-: Thanks for enlightening me. (Is that really his full name?) And thanks for the fun funny-name roundup with the cool links.
That was his name at birth at least, supposedly, according to the internets, and those are nets that have never been wrong. Glad you enjoyed the post! 🙂
I believe you missed Hawk Koch (pronounced “cotch”, unlike other famous Kochs), the Academy President. I clearly didn’t hear his name correctly when they announced him onstage, and ended up with some unfortunate google results when searching for what I thought I heard.
Wait – if his ‘real’ name is apparently Howard Kirchner Koch (not as funny, but still has a nice lilt to it) does this disqualify him? Does the funniness have to be bestowed at birth, or can they be celebrated for using the funny name in their everyday professional lives? Please advise.
Certainly not. Busy Phillipps, Bitsie Tulloch, and even people who aren’t women named Elizabeth can be inducted under the moniker that made them famous!
Oh, and P.S. Howard Kirchner Koch is certainly BoFN-worthy on its own merits anyway. The guy belongs 🙂
Ach, I knew I forgot someone. We even had a “guess how Hawk Koch” is pronounced discussion at our gathering. Hawk will feature in the future.