Chris Rock and Jimmy Kimmel Roast the Humorless 2021 Oscars

Comedian Chris Rock on Thursday seemed glad to have not taken part in last month’s Academy Awards ceremony, which for the third straight year took place without a host.

Rock, who hosted the event in 2005 and again in 2016, had also told some jokes at last year’s ceremony alongside Steve Martin.

The most recent iteration of movies’ biggest night featured no comedians, however, but rather a cast of presenters who were mostly actors and actresses.

“You know what we did this year, you and I? We didn’t host the Oscars!” Rock boasted to Jimmy Kimmel.

“It was a real weird feeling of relief to not have been involved in that,” the late-night host acknowledged, perhaps due to the perceived snub of Chadwick Boseman for Best Actor or the decision to not save the Best Picture award for last.

Yet Rock still tuned in to the event, which was the least-watched Academy Awards in history.

“I was like a backseat driver,” Rock described his viewing experience. “Like my dad used to say, ‘Brake! Brake!’ But I was like, ‘Joke! Joke!’”

Rock and Kimmel had been discussing the upcoming movie Spiral, the newest edition to the Saw franchise in which Rock stars alongside Samuel L. Jackson.

“In a way it’s like the opposite of your conversation with the people at Saw,” as Kimmel put it. “You’re like, ‘Have you ever considered adding some humor into the Saw series? Someone must have gone to the Oscars and said, ‘Have you ever considered subtracting all the humor from the Oscars?’”

“They did a good job,” Rock replied, “if that was what they went for.”