Neil Patrick Harris on Twitter reaction to his Oscar hosting gig and the truth about the tighty whites

Neil Patrick Harris didn’t bother to go to sleep after hosting Sunday’s Academy Awards.

He returned to the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood early today to appear on pal Kelly Ripa’s morning show Live With Kelly and Michael where he was greeted with a standing ovation.

But reviews of the first-time Oscar host’s performance were mixed following a very successful opening musical number.

‘I’m glad that it’s done and I’m sorry that I read Twitter,’ said Harris.

Ripa’s co-host Michael Strahan asked Harris to compare hosting the Oscars to the Emmys which he has hosted twice and the Tonys which he has hosted four times.

‘The Oscars, it’s a juggernaut – a gigantic show,’ Harris said. ‘It’s a lot of hurdles and a lot of laps around the track.’

He said one of his goals was to make the live audience inside the theater feel welcome but to also make television viewers feel a part of things as well.

When Ripa, a close personal friend of Harris and husband David Burtka, remarked that Harris had seemed so calm in the days leading up to the big night he admitted: ‘That was more the actor in me that I seemed calmer than I actually was.’

One of the more memorable and well-received bits from the night was when Harris re-enacted a scene from Birdman and walked from his dressing room to the stage wearing nothing but a pair of tighty whites.

His bulge led some to speculate that he has somehow enhanced the area.

‘No sock!’ he said.

But Harris shared that the underwear had to be altered because during dress rehearsal they had become see-through under the bright lights.

‘We had to do something so you couldn’t tell my religion.’