Column: I'm still gaga over Lady Gaga -- did you know she could sing?

My wife and I tried to watch "Birdman" a couple of days before the film won an Oscar for best picture. I say we "tried to watch" because we only lasted about 45 minutes into the movie before we said to each other, "I've had enough."

"Birdman" is promoted as a comedy, but we weren't laughing. Is that because we are in that age-advantaged generation that remembers when funny movies were, well, funny?

I am not going to give you a review of "Birdman" or tell you why we didn't like it. Our younger son urged us to watch it. He said he thought it was one of the best movies he had seen in a long time.

But I am going to give you a review of the Oscars show. I am no more qualified than you to do this, but I think my 50-plus years of watching Oscars being handed out should count for something.

The first TV show I ever saw in color was the 1966 Academy Awards show. I don't remember anything about who won or what production numbers were featured, because we were all so taken with the fact that we were watching in color.

This was in the days before cable TV. We were living in Gladstone, a suburb of Kansas City. We did not have a color TV, but we had a friend whose parents had just bought a brand-new set. We were honored to be among the guests invited to an Oscar-night party at the home of the parents.

Even though the show was broadcast in color, the rabbit-ear antenna used to pick up the signal was marginally reliable. Our friend's father spent the entire evening fiddling with the antenna. As a a result, we saw much of the broadcast in black and white, except, of course, when our host was holding on to the rabbit ears.

A cold reality check occurred during Sunday night's Oscars broadcast. The highlight of the four hours was the tribute by Lady Gaga to "The Sound of Music." How did 50 years go by so quickly?

As you might expect, I am not what you would call a Lady Gaga fan. What little I knew about her before Sunday night was that she is a consummate performer. She knows how to put on a dazzling show. She is known for her bizarre costumes, hairdos and makeup. I had no idea she could sing.

But Lady Gaga's rendition of a medley of familiar songs from the musical was as fine as any I've ever heard. Not only that, Lady Gaga brilliantly chose to wear a stunning gown and a hair style that was in no way goofy or kinky. Here was Lady Gaga making the most of an audience of a billion-plus TV viewers by giving a performance that was about as anti-Gaga as you could imagine.

I was floored. So was the audience at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles, which gave the singer a well-deserved standing ovation that lasted several minutes.

The icing on the cake came when Julie Andrews, the Maria so many of us know and love, came onto the stage and gave Lady Gaga a great big bear hug.

And I saw it all in digital color, thanks to satellites and high-definition TV. I didn't have to wiggle the antenna a single time during the broadcast. I didn't have to play with the horizontal-hold adjustment knob at all.

I don't know who was in charge of producing the Oscars show, but whoever talked Lady Gaga into performing against the persona she has so carefully cultivated is a genius. She or he deserves an Oscar.

Another reason I was looking forward to this year's Oscars show was because Neil Patrick Harris was the emcee. Harris is practically home folk, now that he has been to Cape Girardeau to appear in the "Gone Girl" movie. I had watched him host the Tony awards, and I expected him to pull out all the stops for the Oscars.

Sadly, Harris either pulled out too many stops or got mixed up on which ones to pull out. Its jokes were strained and flat. Response from the live audience seemed to be cool at best. He's a talented actor, singer and dancer. He is capable of so much more than he showed us at the Oscars.

So there it is. My take on the Oscars after more than half a century of watching, start to finish, every broadcast since way back when.

Bottom line: Gaga is a go. Harris needs better handlers. Imagine how impressive he might have been if he had, like Lady Gaga, played against type.

Joe Sullivan is the retired editor of the Southeast Missourian.