The best and worst moments of the Golden Globes

But the Golden Globes is supposed to be the fun one!

Once maligned and mocked as the Oscars’ slacker cousin, today TV audiences eagerly await the Globes, the only remotely entertaining major awards show other than the Tonys. Too bad for viewers at home, however, because Sunday night’s telecast proved they’re only as golden as their headliner — in this case, TV’s lousiest late-night host, Jimmy Fallon.

For the past seven years, the ringmaster has been either Ricky Gervais or𒊎 Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, unpredictable and irreverent entertainers who care more about the TV audience than the ꦗfragile celebrity egos inside the Beverly Hilton hotel.

But instead we were saddled with Officer Friendl🦩y, who turned the booziest night of awards season into a watered-down virgin daiquiri. The limp lip-syncher was the worst part of a three-hour slog.

Worst: Jimmy Fallon

“The Tonight Show” host delivered his dim-witted, sophomoric banter as though he pulled an all-nighter on a creative writing paper only to receive a C-minus. He relied heavily on his adequate impressions of Chris Rock and Sting, poked fun at actors’ names and swapped cleverness for volume. Fallon’s star-friendly persona may be preferred by publicists, agents and mana🌳gers, but his overenthu𓃲siastic self-love made for a long, dull evening. Praise Oscar that his much funnier ABC rival Jimmy Kimmel is hosting the Academy Awards in February.

Best: Goldie Hawn

In a throwback to Ye Olde Globes, Hawn uneasily took the stage alongside co-presenter Amy Schumer and proclaimed that she’d be reading off the nominees for “best actor in a motion picture comedy or mystical.” She meant musical. “It’s OK, sweetie,” she said to Schumer, a𝔉s the “Trainwreck” actress helped Hawn collect her🃏self. While it was, I think, partly a gag, Hawn is not strong enough an actress to totally fake such delicious discombobulation. On a related note: This year, there were bottles of Moet and Chandon champagne on every table.

Worst: Low-wattage star power

No matter how padded the invite an🐷d presenters lists were with A-listers, the telecast was, of course, dominated by the winners and their speeches. But this year many of the lucky few who took home trophies were newcomers whose charisma simply didn’t match their talents, like Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Damien Chazelle. Some, however, like Claire Foy and Tracee Ellis Ross thankfully rose to the♛ occasion.

Best/Worst: Steve Carell and Kristen Wiig

Every Golden Globes ceremony has this moment: Three minutes of giddiness and exhilaration — “They’re so funny!” — followed by the second stage of grief — “Why can’t they be the hosts instead?” That happened Sunday night as Steve Carell and Kristen Wiig presented best animated ꦆfeature film. Carell described seeing Disney’s “Fantasia” as a tyke: “That was the moment [my mom] told my dad she wanted a divorce,” he said to laughter. Wiig followed up by saying her three dogs were put down right before she saw “Bambi.” It was fabulous when they were onstage, and rock-bottom devastating as they handed us off to Fallon.

Best: It was a real horse-race

In recent weeks, awards momentum seemed to have swung to two December releases: “La La Land” and “Manchester by the Sea.” And right up the last minute, it looked like the Globes would follow suit. “La La Land,” indeed, won 7 awards — a record for this show — including best musical or comedy. But “Moonlight,” a film that was released back in September, wouldn’t be kept down as it won best drama, even after losing every other category.

Best: Meryl Streep

The politicization of Hollywood awards shows can come across as strident to even the loudest leftists. But Streep, as she received the Cecil B. DeMille Award, delivered a critique of president-elect Donald Trump that was graceful, measured an🌺d mature. Even if she did throw football and mixed martial-arts under the bus, both sides of the aisle can agree🙈 it made for pretty great TV.