Welp, Ellen Degeneres hosted the Oscars last night and was exactly how you’d expect: bland, tedious, indulging in long set pieces that promised only mild chuckles from the outset and barely delivered those in execution. I guess the Academy Awards do this every time they have a “risky” host (like Seth MacFarland last year) and follow it up with someone so safe, nobody could possibly object. Problem is, nobody’s really entertained either.
Ellen’s monologue was toothless, her pizza bit fell flat, and her idea of a really “good one” involved crappy puns like “Hey Lupita, you want some piz-za?” Har har har! Hyuk yuk yuk, I’m sure that would have slayed them at the 3rd grade lunch table, but the jokes just felt really immature or uninspired for anybody else.
It reminds me of my long standing belief that no one should host the Oscars more than once. I’d rather watch James Franco flop it the first time hosting than Billy Crystal run on autopilot the 9th time hosting. Who wouldn’t rather have seen David Letterman covered in flop sweat than Ellen coast her way through it?
A list of people that have never hosted the Oscars before but should: Jim Carrey, Stephen Colbert (my top pick…seriously), Melissa McCarthy, Conan O’Brien, Kevin Spacey (has said he wanted the job previously), Ben Stiller, Emma Stone, Aisha Tyler, etc. The choices are endless. Why not put up a truly inspired odd couple pairing like Jamie Foxx and Kristen Chenowith? OR Patton Oswalt and Anna Kendrick? OR Joseph Gordon Levitt and Gabourey Sidibe? I mean, really, the options are endless…
Only do new Oscar hosts, and I don’t mean somebody who’s hosted other Awards shows a bunch of times like Jimmy Fallon or Neil Patrick Harris. That’s not what I mean by “new” or surprising.