What You Didn't See At The 2018 MTV Movie & TV Awards
The MTV Movie Awards — recently renamed the MTV Movie & TV Awards — are probably the best of all the many populist awards shows. Sure, real people vote for the People's Choice Awards and Teen Choice Awards, but the MTV awards are as hip and raucous as the MTV Video Music Awards. Not only do they celebrate blockbusters (the top award is for best movie, not best picture or best film), but they're also progressive — acting categories award outstanding performances without regard to gender, so no separate actor and actress categories there.
The 27th iteration of the awards took place in Santa Monica, Calif. on Saturday, June 16, 2018, and aired on MTV two days later, on Monday, June 18. While the three-hour show included 15 awards, musical performances, and a monologue and pre-taped sketches featuring host Tiffany Haddish, it was heavily edited and condensed to fit into a two-hour time slot. A lot of stuff got cut out of the broadcast, but we've got you covered. Here are some moments you only saw if you were in personal attendance at the MTV Movie & TV Awards. (So chances are, you didn't see these things.)
Tiffany Haddish was too hot for TV
Perhaps MTV chose to air the Movie & TV Awards two days after the fact because it figured it was too dangerous (and costly, fines-wise) to put Tiffany Haddish on live television. The 48-hour tape delay gave editors plenty of time to excise some (or a lot) of Haddish's improvised quips that would not have flown on basic cable, during primetime, to an audience consisting primarily of teenagers.
E! Online reported that while Haddish's jokes were mostly what one would expect from the quick and clever star of the raunchy Girls Trip, she got controversial a couple of times. During one moment, Haddish evoked the incendiary Public Enemy classic "F*** the Police." At first, it seemed like the joke wasn't going to be politically motivated and provocative, but worry not, because Haddish turned it around into a brief but filthy joke. "Should we say f*** the police?" she asked the audience. "Because I have f***ed a few."
She also kept the crowd entertained during the commercial breaks worked into the show's taping. She reportedly riffed and cracked wise while a beauty squad gave her quick hair and makeup fixes.
Chris Pratt and Tiffany Haddish scored a No. 2 hit
Chris Pratt was this year's deserving recipient of the Generation Awards — sort of the MTV Movie & TV Awards' lifetime achievement award, but given to somebody who is still very much in their prime. Pratt's work on Parks & Recreation, The Lego Movie, the Guardians of the Galaxy films, and the rebooted Jurassic Park franchise merited the prize, and Pratt, always a funny dude, used his acceptance speech to offer up nine life-changing maxims. While some were heartfelt ("Learn to pray,") most were silly, including a long explanation about how to limit embarrassment when one needs to "poop at a party."
When host Tiffany Haddish came on after Pratt, she expanded on Pratt's scatological advice. According to Entertainment Weekly, Haddish "offered her own musings on the mechanics of going number one and number two during the same bathroom break." That included the host wondering what happens when guys think they need to use the bathroom for one thing, but then realize they need to do the other thing. Only in the in-house crowd got to experience this dookie-based philosophizing, which didn't air as part of the broadcast.
Sneaking out with the Kardashians
The various and assorted members of the Kardashian/Jenner/West entertainment and reality conglomerate usually make a big splash wherever they go. At this point, not making their presence known with a scandalous outfit or outrageous statement is probably the most shocking thing a Kardashian can do.
The red carpet arrivals for the 2018 MTV Movie & TV Awards didn't air on the former home of music videos and Daria, with Twitter opting to stream the stream of pretty people walking the red carpet as they arrived at the ceremony, which was held at a Santa Monica airplane hangar. That means TV viewers didn't see the super low-key arrival of two representatives of the reality show royal family: Kim Kardashian and her mother, Kris Jenner. They wore nice white clothes. They took their seats. They later took the stage to accept a gold-covered-popcorn-shaped trophy for best reality Show. After that, according to People, mom and daughter took off. A Kardashian? Leaving a party?
She was not ready
Tiffany Haddish is unquestionably one of the funniest people on Earth, and she was a perfect choice to host this year's MTV Movie & TV Awards. Following a huge breakout role in the hit Girls Trip, the self-proclaimed "Black Unicorn" reminds us with her catchphrase that "she ready" took to the stage of the Barker Hangar dressed in a tight white dress that was instantly recognizable to fans as a clone of the garment Cardi B wore when she performed "Be Careful" on SNL two months prior. During Cardi B's performance, the rap star debuted her very large baby bump mid-performance. To whit, Haddish also had a baby bump at the awards show. A device hidden inside the dress slowly inflated the baby bump, or at least, that's what was supposed to happen. It didn't quite work at first, so Haddish had to repeat the show's opening, which included her spitting some verse.
An honest-to-goodness hero took home best hero
The MTV Movie & TV Awards are one big party with lots of fun and silly moments. (Just how many times have the best kiss winners recreated their award-capturing moment on stage?) One would not expect this lark of a show to include a truly moving and poignant moment, but the 2018 awards did...although MTV edited it down and dulled some of its impact.
Chadwick Boseman won best hero for the role of T'Challa (aka Black Panther,) in this year's mega-hit Black Panther. Instead of saying thanks for his award and promising to put it someplace special, Boseman brought a special guest to the stage: James Shaw, Jr. — a real life hero. Viewers saw Boseman praise Shaw and give him his trophy as a small gesture of thanks for stopping a gunman during a terrifying shooting at a Tennessee Waffle House in April 2018. They didn't see the crowd's minute-long standing ovation for Shaw — it was edited down. According to People, cameras also didn't catch what happened after Boseman walked off the stage — he returned to his table for an emotional group-hug with his Black Panther co-stars.