Best in 2023: The Raisins d’Ors
Good evening.
We at the Academy would like to open tonight’s celebration with an apology. At last year’s event, a team of rogue writers and producers not vetted by the Academy took control of the stage proceedings and created a show that does not represent the thoughts or opinions of either the Academy or its founder. On this the anniversary of his death, we endeavor to remember him and his mission as we also offer our heartfelt condolences to those who were, directly or indirectly, harmed by last year’s ceremony. We would like to offer a personal apology to Ellen DeGeneres, who the Academy recognizes did not provide verbal or written consent for use of her voice or likeness. We want to reassure all viewers of that event that the presenter they saw reenacting the Will Smith-Chris Rock slap with an equally-convincing deepfake of the late Queen Elizabeth II was neither the host of The Ellen DeGeneres Show nor the before-its-time Ellen. We also want to stress that Ellen can pronounce “Puss in Boots” and has done so several times in both her personal and professional lives.
We would like to apologize as well to the estimated two hundred and fifty thousand children who watched our live event. A miscommunication behind the scenes led production assistants who scheduled the simulcasting of our stage show on Nickelodeon’s Noggin sister network to not have cross-checked that decision with the executive producer who asked that all seat fillers show up nude. We also extend a glove-covered hand in apology to those seat fillers who, legally, may or may not have been told that their tickets and transportation fees would not be paid as promised if they did not agree to comply with this change in dress code. Once more, to all those hurt, offended, or otherwise dehumanized by last year’s proceedings, we are truly sorry.
Now, before we begin, I would like to take a look at the past twelve months through the eyes of a man who is, again, very dead and has been for months, leaving behind a corpse that is by now but human ivory and calcified chicken nuggets. His decision to leave the administration of last year’s show to a team of Russian YouTube pranksters living illegally in the Philippines and unable to be on-location for the night of the ceremony does not at all reflect negatively on the lasting image of a man operating in diminished capacity.
This year was an important one for readers of bengrapevine.com, a website that in 2019 internet traffic ranker Alexa claimed could only be described with one word: “unlisted”. Since then, through years of painstaking publication of articles whose topics have been lauded with such blurbs as “didn’t you write about this?” and “I had never heard about this until I saw it on TikTok”, the website’s overall ranking has skyrocketed. Potentially. Amazon killed Alexa.com in 2022 and with it went all records of our tremendous success.
All good things must come to an end. Without further ado, here is this year’s recap in the words of a man who barely experienced it, again, because he is dead:
(Note: At this point in the show, presenter Meryl Streep left the stage and was replaced by a highly realistic hologram projection of the founder’s likeness. Ellen DeGeneres’s team was on site and authorized to pull the plug at a moment’s notice. What follows are words generated by the Academy’s AI replica of the founder’s brain.
Hello. Please cease your standing ovation. It is not necessary as I am dead. I am here to update you on another year. Wasn’t it great? Not for me. I died. Okay. Here’s my recap:
The nine people who listened to Christmas with the Colonel, a podcast episode about Japan’s fun tradition of spending Christmases at KFC, will be happy to know that the Japanese baseball team cursed when an American player threw a statue of Colonel Sanders into the Dotonbori River has successfully reversed that curse, winning the Japan Series with four total wins against the Orix Buffalos.
Those of you who read and loved Minnesota’s Flag is Bad. Let’s Change it., expressing your appreciation to me with such auditory accolades as “you’re into flags, right?” and “I have never heard you talk about this ever” will be happy to know that we did it: Minnesota is changing her flag. I spent two months in pure vexillological ecstasy and one holding myself back from writing an expletive-laced polemic detailing how much I hate the committee and the abomination the responsible parties produced. The dead are meant to rest peacefully, but I’ve got terrible news about which direction I went as my spirit peeled itself from its flesh cocoon.
Finally, I would be remiss to not mention my favorite colossal ungulate, Gävle, Sweden’s Gävlebocken. Known by some for its starring role in a 2019 podcast episode, Sweden’s Burning Christmas Goat, and by many more for its uncanny ability to show up in every conversation I had in the months between that podcast’s publication and my untimely death to that weird respiratory dog virus that’s going around. Since I hit “publish” on SoundCloud or Bebo.com or whatever backwater of the Internet I relegate all of my content to, I’ve been inundated by the pitchfork-wielding imps of Internet culture, the true dregs of society unable to leave the denizens of Gävle alone. Those citizens, a migrant people originating in the pages of a Hans Christian Andersen book, continue to be terrorized yearly on Twitter (now under new ownership and rebranded as Hooters for Space Freaks) with reminders of just how many of these imps hope their town’s Christmas centerpiece goes up in flames. I guess you either die a person who thinks that the Gävlebocken burning down is funny or live long enough to become a person who doesn’t think the Gävlebocken burning down is funny. In my case I died anyway. Regardless, for those of you who get your kicks off of arson: the goat didn’t burn down this year. It was eaten by birds. Don’t you feel silly?
That’s it for this year. Now for the awards.