tommyp007

Hell yes!

dan30oly

This.

Or me.

However, I would totally be servicing Michael Bay and Adam Sandler the whole 5 hours, and it would still be better than anything from teh last one.

Groucho

The "host-free" show has been tried where multiple celebrities (usually about 3-5) take turns introducing the presenters. Most recently in 1986-87,

dhmac

Speaking of "And the winner is..." vs. "And the Oscar goes to..."

After replacing it with "And the Oscar goes to..." decades ago, which year did they bring back "And the winner is..." for a fairly recent Oscars show. Was it something like 3, 4, or 5 years ago?

After that happened, I thought they were retiring "And the Oscar goes to..." but, no, it was soon back again.

dhmac

I've seen every Oscar broadcast since the early 1990s, so this is my view of the hosts over that timespan:

Did a good job hosting the Oscars (IMO):
Billy Crystal (9x)
Steve Martin (2x solo)
Jon Stewart (2x)
Hugh Jackman
Steve Martin & Alec Baldwin (co-host)
Seth MacFarlane

Did a poor job hosting the Oscars (IMO):
Whoopi Goldberg (4x)
David Letterman
Chris Rock
Ellen DeGeneres (2x)
James Franco & Anne Hathaway (co-host)
Neil Patrick Harris

Groucho

I thought Ellen was great last year. Don't really remember her other hosting gig.

dhmac

Ellen hosted the Oscars in 2007 before returning in 2014. I just didn't think she was very funny either time.

Here's Ellen's famous taking selfies segment from the 2014 Oscars
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GsSWj51uGnI?rel=0&showinfo=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

But it was basically a repeat of Ellen's taking photos with the stars from the 2007 Oscars (and this was for posting on Myspace - Wow!)
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/q0XUJETqVoA?rel=0&showinfo=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

And, personally, I thought both segments were rather lame in the show itself (although a selfie from the 2014 show did go viral, so there is that to her credit).

Draven

That I don't remember - did it work?

The only useful thing a host can do for a show like this is to speed it up. For example - things are getting long so they decided to cut the Birdman underwear bit. But they never do that.

arbogast777

I'd have the Academy president start the show by coming out and welcoming everybody, then turn it over to presenters. With a host they feel forced to give them something to do with inane segments after the opening monologue anyway. That's where a lot of the fat in the show comes from.

Ash Ketchum

Brian Williams should host. He might need a job next year.

Too bad there's nobody remotely like Johnny Carson or Bob Hope in today's crop of comics/TV hosts.

mcnabb

Johnny Carson talked about the best way to Host the Oscars: Come out and do your best material for the first 10 minutes, and then stay out of the way the rest of the night.

Jaymole

Not for me...I don't think I want to hear him reminisce about working with D.W. Griffith & Chaplin.

Ash Ketchum

I do! Bringin' the Oscars back to its roots! From someone who was there!

EddieMoney

Stephen Hawking.

hasslein

Norm MacDonald or Pee-wee...

mcnabb

Norm McDonald would be great. So many people don't get his humor, and most of the crowd wouldn't either, so it would be totally unawkward all night (in a good way.)

cungar

Norm nearly stole the Celebrity Jeopardy bit from Will Ferrell the other night. Especially in light of the lame fat Sean Connery and doesn't look or sound anything like Cristoph Waltz intimations.

I agree that Norm's wildly underused.

Brack

I assume you meant totally awkward all night.

If people were worried about the show going on too long, Norm should never host. It'd be a 6 hour show since he's pretty slow with his brand of humor. That, and he's kinda old now, and not in a good way.

Rival11

I want chris rock back, mainly because of how he fucked with Sean Penn - he REALLY got under his skin and as a person who can't stand Sean Penn - I thought it was fantastic.

I honestly think Ellen didn't do too bad a job...I remember when she called Liza Minnelli "Sir" I lost it.

Ky-Fi

Christopher Guest and Michael McKeon.

RichC2

Amy Schumer. It'd be a mildly offensive wreck.

Decker

Bob Hope would have been eviscerated if he hosted in the Twitter era. He was never even remotely funny. People were just more tolerant of a host who was pleasant and inoffensive back then.

cungar

NPH:

“I’m glad that it’s done and I’m sorry that I read Twitter,” the Tony winner said. On Monday afternoon, Harris took to Twitter to again express a similar sentiment: “My iPhone shattered the morning of the Oscars. I probably should have read more into that. #harbinger”.

Ash Ketchum

I remember laughing a lot at Hope. In fact, I once heard an old radio broadcast of the 1946 Oscar ceremony and--you're not gonna believe this--one of the presenters was none other than D.W. Griffith! (How about that, Jaymole?) And instead of the crowd applauding and giving him a standing ovation the way today's Oscar audience does for every old-timer who ambles to the stage, Hope just started zinging Griffith with one-liners. Yes, the father of American cinema was standing there, 30 years after the fact, and Hope was making fun of him! It was a bit of a shock to me, but funny as hell. I'm not gonna repeat the lines here. You had to get the references for it to be funny.

Giles

Graham Norton

[complete with ejector seat]