Idina Menzel might have thought her name was Idina Menzel, but John Travolta knew better. In what was by far the best moment of the 86th Academy awards – even better than Pharrell dancing with Lupita and Meryl, and that’s saying a lot – was John Travolta’s ‘pronunciation’ of Menzel’s name.
It’s not even a difficult name to pronounce. Ee-deena Men-zel. Travolta, however (Tra-volta), introduced the Tony-award winning Broadway star to the stage, thusly:
If you didn’t quite catch that, here’s a full transcript:
Please welcome,
the WiCk-edly talented,
the juan and oNly
Idina Menzelazhfgfljfefhisjkfs
Setting aside for a moment the fact that Travolta apparently also struggles with the word ‘wickedly’, and adds a vibrato flourish to “the one and only”, the glaringly obvious discrepancy here is the blender of vowels he tries to pass off as a name.
Of course, we’ve all mumbled the chorus of a pop song into our sternums when we’ve forgotten the exact words, but then, we probably didn’t have an audience of millions watching.
The nearest thing to a legible sounding name was ‘Adele Dazeem’, or ‘Adele Dazim’. So naturally, within minutes – and I really do mean minutes – the internet was on the case and created not just a meme, but a whole new person. This is why the internet is awesome:
THANK YOU, JORN TROMOLTO!
— Adela Dazeem (@AdelaDazeem) March 3, 2014
More parody accounts followed:
Sarah Michelle Gellar aka Buffy was as perplexed as the rest of us:
#AdeleDazim really????? #Oscars I have nothing else.......
— Sarah Michelle (@RealSMG) March 3, 2014
Our Radio and TV editor Rebecca Nicholson’s professional opinion was as follows:
Tumblr got involved too:
And finally, Buzzfeed created their own list of other names Travolta might struggle with.
So forget Lupita, forget J-Law and Matthew McConaughey, last night’s Oscars belonged to one person and one person only; the wickedly talented Adele Dazeem. Oh John, you had one job.