Some people say you just know when you have met the person you will marry. On Mom's Car from Armchair Expert, Jonathan Tucker says he had one moment when he was sure. It came right after an awards-show presentation that, in his own words, was "offensive" and "terrible."
Clip: Viral Podcast Shorts YouTube Short from the full source linked below.
The segment in the Short tells the whole arc: an early win, a bigger invitation, a presentation that fell apart and what his then-girlfriend did when he sat back down. The details below stay with what he says in the clip.
A hit at a smaller show
Tucker sets the scene with the "mini award shows" that come before the Academy Awards, the Emmys and the Golden Globes. He calls them starter awards, "lower tier award ceremonies."
He had been asked to present an award at one of them. Instead of using the introduction he was given, he wrote his own copy. "When I presented it, it was a huge hit," he says. People loved it. He remembers hearing that the ceremony itself was terrible, but that he was great and funny.
The next tier up
The success led to another invitation. The same team, he says, asked him to present at a ceremony that was "a next tier up." Feeling great about himself, he decided to do what had worked before. "I'm going to write my own copy again," he says.
He came to that bigger awards event with Tara. "My wife now," he says, "but she's my girlfriend at the time."
No teleprompter, no light to read by
The plan had a gap. Tucker says he did not give his copy to the teleprompter. Asked why not, he says it did not occur to him. He was, after all, one for one.
Looking back, he says there was a warning sign. Every presenter who went up before him was "super famous," and they kept commenting on how bright it was under the lights. "Should have been a good tip off," he says.
When he got up there, he could not see a thing. He had written and printed out his copy, but in small type under those lights, he could not read the font.
Jokes without the setup
That turned out to matter more than usual, because of the kind of material he had written. The jokes, he says, were "awesome if I set them up properly." Without the context, they came across as offensive.
He is blunt about how it went. "I got to tell you it was offensive and it was terrible," he says.
The moment he knew
Then comes the part he set out to tell. He sat back down, and Tara put her hand on his lap. He does not remember exactly what she said. It was something like "I love you," or "you did great," or that she was so happy to be there with him.
That was enough. "I was like I'm going to marry you," Tucker says. "That's it. I'm going to marry this woman."
Why this small gesture stuck
The story works because of the contrast. A night that should have been a step up went the other way, and the part of the story he builds to is not the stage. It is what happened in the seat next to him, a few seconds after he sat down.
In his telling, Tara did not need to say anything specific. He cannot even recall her exact words. What he remembers is the hand on his lap and the kind words, right after a presentation that went badly. For Tucker, that is when he knew.
This article covers only the segment shown in the Short. The fuller conversation is in the full episode.
Related reading
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- Sam Tallent's worst night ever: Kill Tony at the O2 in London
FAQ
What went wrong when Jonathan Tucker presented the award?
He says he wrote his own copy but did not give it to the teleprompter, could not read his printout under the bright lights, and his jokes landed as offensive without their setup.
Does he name the awards show?
No. In the clip he describes it only as a ceremony a tier above the smaller one where his self-written intro was a hit.
Who is Tara?
Tucker calls her "my wife now," and says she was his girlfriend at the time.
When did he know he would marry her?
When he sat down after the presentation and she put her hand on his lap and said something kind.