The Internet Is Obsessed With This Prank A Very Young Taika Waititi Tried To Pull At The Oscars

Taika Waititi makes films that are antic, anarchic, and suffused with a warm, crackling kind of life — which also happen to be three good descriptors for him as a person.

The man’s a vibrant splash of colour, sometimes quite literally: these days, he’s as famous for his brain-meltingly good pant-suits as he is for his directorial flourishes. He’s always pulling a gag of some kind, whether it be a tongue-in-cheek barb aimed at his one-time turn in The Green Lantern, or his penchant for just generally making the Thor: Ragnarok set a place of jovial chaos.

Well, as it turns out, that jester-like proclivity for fun isn’t new, either. As it happens, Waititi was pulling such gags all the way back in 2005.

See, some 14 years ago, Waititi was nominated for an Oscar for his short film Two Cars, One Night. The short film Oscars are usually the part of the ceremony people use as an excuse to take a bathroom break, or stock-up on stacks. After all, those in the audience aren’t exactly hanging off the edge of their seats to find out who made the best Animated Short.

Perhaps knowing that, Waititi decided to inject a little colour into his corner of the night. So, while he and the rest of the nominees for Best Live Action Short were having a drink one night, he had an idea.

“I tried to convince them all that we should all be asleep,” Waititi said in an interview for NZ Screen, filmed later. “And they were all like, ‘Yeah, yeah, that sounds great.’ I thought they were serious. I thought they were into it. I was the only one who did it.”

So, here in all of its glory, is the clip of Taika Waititi trying and failing to pull an elaborate prank on the Oscars:

taika waititi was nominated for an oscar for a short film in 2005 and apparently he told the other nominees they should all pretend to be asleep but he was the only one who actually did it. legend pic.twitter.com/S3o40tC17C

— paul rudd (@philsadelphia) December 30, 2019

Although it went down 14 years ago, the prank has only just re-emerged, proving definitively that some gags are good enough to last the test of time.

Thanks for the yuks, Taika.