[4] Cliff Robertson's performance in Charly, which had received a mixed-to-negative reception from critics and audiences, engendered controversy when he won the Academy Award for Best Actor.

Less than two weeks after the ceremony, TIME mentioned the Academy's generalized concerns over "excessive and vulgar solicitation of votes" and said "many members agreed that Robertson's award was based more on promotion than on performance.

[6] Also notable this year was the only instance to date of the Academy revoking an Oscar after the ceremony: Young Americans won the award for Best Documentary Feature Film, but on May 7, 1969, it was discovered that it had premiered in October 1967, thus making it ineligible.

[7][8] A minor controversy was created when, in a sketch on The Tonight Show, which was recorded three hours before the awards ceremony, Johnny Carson and Buddy Hackett announced Oliver!

[9] Columnist Frances Drake claimed that most observers believed Carson and Hackett "were playing a huge practical joke or happened to make a lucky guess".

Fagin assured Dodger that if they didn’t win the golden statuette, they would “pinch it.”[14][15] The president of the Academy, Gregory Peck, taped a pre-recorded opening[d] in the empty lobby of the new venue, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

[14][19] During the Best Original Screenplay presentation (which was won by Mel Brooks for The Producers), comedian Don Rickles carried a cue card up to Frank Sinatra at the podium.

[20] A surprise "friend of Oscar" was revealed by Walter Matthau; a little monkey dressed in a tux brought John Chambers the statuette for special achievement in makeup for Planet of the Apes.

[12][21] Ten-year-old Mark Lester, who portrayed the title role of Oliver!, handed an honorary Oscar to the musical’s Canadian choreographer, Onna White.

[17][23] Hope later observed that “Oscar is more naked than usual…They’re doing things on the screen today I wouldn’t do in bed, even if I had the chance.”[24] Ruth Gordon won Best Supporting Actress as the nosy neighbour in Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby.

Danilo Donati, the costume designer for Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet, was not present, so Fonda handed the Oscar to the dancers portraying the star-crossed lovers as a “symbolic” gesture.