11th Annual On Cinema Oscar Special

The 11th Annual On Cinema Oscar Special
Hosts	T. Amato G. Amato Joey P.
Guests	Gregg Turkington Kaili Amato Joe Estevez Axiom Manuel Giusti Corwin Allard Empty Bottle Players stevie richie Toni Newman ellie casey (via phone) bigbird Hank Friedmann (pre-recorded) konrad (pre-recorded) archie Unnamed AmatoCon attendees
Aired	March 10, 2024
Segments	joeyswhiskey heiwindsrewards On Cinema On Location Joey's Take Live! fromthevault hiddenhollywood amatoconidol movielinks
Runtime	TBD
Video link	HEI (subscription required)

The 11th Annual On Cinema Oscar Special, also referred to as the AmatoCon 2024 Global Live Stream, aired March 10, 2024, as part of AmatoCon's final day festivities. Funded by The Amato Group, the festivities included major events and seminars hosted by T. Amato, Joey P., and G. Amato, with minor Oscar-related segments from Gregg Turkington. Other events during the special included a tribute to Tim's deceased step-son, Matt Newman, and a competition between T. Amato and the Empty Bottle Players and Dekkar, “amatoconidol”, over the ownership rights for the latter band.

Actual convention center, couple of dozen people in the audience, gregg has a small corner for himself with a bunch of tapes. Joey, T. start with a song, G. dances. Gregg unsurprisingly argues. Power of mercy speech delayed to tonight. Waygu hamburger stand left, there's a desert food truck left. Gregg says all 10 best picture noms are perfect. gregg wants to be on stage. the power of rewards, like tim's new dodge charger. mic noise from gregg sorting his tapes. NEW CODING SYSTEM! Psycho 1 (original movie), Psycho 1R (remake), Psycho 2SR (sequel to the remake), T. Amato speech cuts gregg off.

tim has not been getting his sunlight or sleep due to recent events. tim talks about his “holy sh*t moment”, when g announced hei points can be converted to lithium. the gift of drcs.

• Richie Onori and Stevie Stewart are not original members of The Sweet, as hinted at by marketing promoting “current members”. Rather, they are a part of one of the two re-formed The Sweet bands out, Steve Priest's Sweet, formerly lead by original band member Steve Priest, who died in 2020. This version of the band has continued to perform after Priest's death.^[1]

• Gregg is wearing an Argo jacket, hat, finish
• T. appears to be watching “24 hours + of pure black screen in HD!” when in the theater setting on his virtual reality headset.
  • T. refused to name the headset, but it appears to be a Meta Quest device.

• This special was not recorded from Rialto, California at all, but rather the Hilton in Glendale, California.^[2]
• According to the season 14 wrap party, Joe being drunk was something he made up himself, as his character otherwise did not have much planned to do during the special.^[2]
• T. grabbing the mints from the gutter company and eating them was an impulse, which wound up making the Whiskey tasting segment better as T. still had that minty taste in his mouth.^[2]
• The Whiskey tasting segment was similar to the Club Random podcast hosted by Bill Maher, which Tim has parodied before on Office Hours.
• A 2023 Dodge Charger costs around $35,000, so T. being gifted a 2018 model isn't particularly the most impressive.^[3]
• T. mentioning the Dodge Charger as a reward in S14E10 was an improvisation, the car itself being owned by the manager of the studio they taped OCOD in. They were able to get permission to use his car for this special.^[2]
• Technical issues arose once again, with the stream freezing during the HEI Winds Rewards segment. The stream was then changed from the usual Vimeo-hosted stream to a YouTube embed.
  • This is the third of the four HEI Network-era Oscar Specials to this point to have technical difficulties so bad that they had to change sites or providers, with the 10th special being the only one with no flaws.
  • Per Justin Gaynor, HEI Network is done with using Vimeo and will be seeking an alternative service for live streams in the future.^[4]
• The live audience consisted of around 20 people, picked by 1st assistant director Jason C. Brown, that looked like average middle-aged Rialto residents who had come for either the free food or potential business lessons.
  • The audience members were instructed to be as bored and uninterested in the events as possible, with no laughing, and that they could leave at anytime or when told to by the crew.
    • The lack of laughter from the audience initially made both Tim and Gregg worry that they were bombing, though they said they got over this after the first half hour.^[2]
• The Robert de Niro montage was produced by vicberger.
• This special appears to contradict a prior Twitter-exclusive arc, where in 2021, Manuel became an American citizen.^[5][6]
• The movie memorabilia for the collector's booth were purchased by Gregg, Katie Dolan, and Annie Dolan at a movie memorabilia collection, intentionally going for “dollar bin” items to populate the table.^[2]
• Richie Onori and Stevie Stewart from Steve Priest's Sweet got involved as Gregg and Katie looked at people who were booked at the Canyon Club for a two-month span and contacted their managers. The Sweet's were the first to return contact.
  • Other potential music guests were Robby Krieger of The Doors and Blondie Chaplin of (briefly) The Beach Boys, but ultimately neither could show.
    • Gregg mentions at the wrap party that if Blondie was able to come, they likely would have done a “Chaplin on Chaplin” sketch with him and Gregg talking about Charlie Chaplin.^[2]
• Tim considered this special as one of the least stressful, citing the bigger studio the Hilton provided as a major benefit.^[2]
• Former MLB player Brandon McCarthy was close to appearing as a guest, but ultimately couldn't make it.^[2]
  • This was likely a very last-minute cancellation, as the AmatoCon website, when updated days before the event to remove cancelled guests like Jamiroquai and Kelsey Grammer, still included “A former baseball player”.

• Tim was unaware that Toni would come out on stage with the bombastic music chosen, and noted at the wrap party that he had to lower his head as he couldn't hold back his laughter.^[2]
• Gregg noted during the wrap party that he was laughing freely during the whiskey segment, as he was aware the cameras would not cut to him.^[2]
• The teleprompter for the special is briefly seen when Joe is trying to establish a truce between T. Amato and Dekkar.
• One of the audience members is seen covering their mouth to avoid breaking when Big Bird was shooed away.
• G. Amato proudly showing off the lithium also got Tim, according to him.^[2]
• Toni's actor, Terri Newman, is seen laughing during the credits when the camera very briefly cuts to her in the hallways of the convention center. Eric Notarnicola noted this during the wrap party.^[2]