Everything seemed all set and ready to go for the 91st Academy Awards when Kevin Hart accepted to host the ceremony. But just two days later, controversy struck, and Hart announced that he is stepping down from the position due to public outcry over his old homophobic tweets and bits from old stand-up routines.

Hosting the Oscars has become a big deal in itself, and is considered to be an excellent career booster for those lucky enough to have the honor. But weeks had gone by and still without a host, the Academy just finally decided to push through with the ceremony and go host-free for the first time in 30 years.

Yes, this isn’t the first time the Oscars didn’t have a host. In 1989, producer Allan Carr, most notably known for the musical film Grease, filled the host-free void by opening with a bizarre musical number that became one of the most infamous disasters in Academy history. The opening number? Merv Griffin performing his hit song “I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts” and a young coked-up Rob Lowe struggling to sing a cheesy parody of “Proud Mary” with an actress dressed as Snow White, resulting in an incoherent, kooky performance.

If you’re interested in watching the whole thing, here is the 11-minute opening in its full campy (and cringey) glory.

The zany opening number was based on a long-running San Francisco nightclub revue called Beach Blanket Babylon. Carr fell in love with it so much that he even invited its producer and creator Steve Silver to opening number. However, as one should have expected, what worked for a small nightclub probably would not translate perfectly to a grand awards show. Saying it wasn’t well-received by the who’s who in Hollywood at the time is putting it lightly.

The New York Times stated that the opening number “deserves a permanent place in the annals of Oscar embarrassments” in its review. Disney, angry over the unauthorized use of its copyrighted version of Snow White, sued the Academy for copyright infringement, forcing them to make a formal apology.

Then a week later, the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences received a letter signed by 17 prominent Hollywood figures, including Julie Andrews, Paul Newman and former Academy president Gregory Peck condemning the show. The letter proclaimed the opening ceremony “an embarrassment to both the Academy and the entire motion picture industry. It is neither fitting nor acceptable that the best work in motion pictures be acknowledged in such a demeaning fashion. We urge the president and governors of the Academy to ensure that future award presentations reflect the same standard of excellence as that set by the films and filmmakers they honor.”

The scathing response to the opening was the final nail in the coffin for Allan Carr, who had hoped for a career revival after his back-to-back blunders Can’t Stop the Music and Grease 2. He was shunned from Hollywood and lived the rest of his life as a recluse until he died of liver cancer in 1999.

Eileen Bowman, who played Snow White, left everything behind shortly after, and went back to her home in San Diego. Now a successful stage actress in her hometown, she shared her side of the story about that night in Hollywood in an article for The Hollywood Reporter.

“I remember sitting in my condo [in San Diego] watching the news and the Snow White number was all that was on the news,” Bowman recalled. “I had no idea. My phone never stopped ringing. It was awful. All I can say is what Rob Lowe said, ‘Never trust a man in a caftan.'”

On the other hand, Rob Lowe recognizes that doing the number was “a huge mistake.” Recalling the night in an interview with The New York Times, he explained, “I had always thought the Oscars were a bit of fun escapism for America, where we celebrate and honor the craft of making movies. What I didn’t realize was the grand solemnity and profound seriousness, and the contribution to society at large that the evening represents to a lot of people—and that’s on me. That’s my bad.”

As the host-free awards show is set to take place this weekend, Lowe got very real about the current state of the Oscars and its frustrations in looking for a host: “It’s basically a show that nobody wants to do. It’s really sad. But honestly, they’ve got nobody to blame but themselves.”

In retrospect, it probably isn’t as horrendous as when it aired at the time. There have been several Oscar mishaps of equal levels of embarrassment, if not worse, that’s happened over the years. The 2017 Best Picture hiccup between La La Land and Moonlight is the most recent one that comes to mind.

To be fair, it was only the opening number that garnered such a negative reaction. The broadcast received the best ratings for the Oscars in five years. Carr also introduced several aspects that’s become Academy staples ever since. Author Robert Hofler credits him for the presenter’s line, “And the award goes to,” changing it from “and the winner is…” Furthermore, it was the first Oscars that featured an extended coverage of stars arriving on the red carpet, which had become a spectacle of its own.