WASHINGTON, March 2, 2012 — Can't anybody here host this thing?
This adaptation of the famous Casey Stengel question, "Can't anybody here play this game?," seems appropriate for the Oscar show hosts.
What is it about this job that turns capable people — actors, comedians, and other professionals — into self-absorbed, bush-league neophytes?
When Steve Martin hosted Oscar night, in 2002, he quipped that “Hosting the Oscars is like making love to a beautiful woman — it’s something I only get to do when Billy Crystal’s out of town.”
Well, this year Billy Crystal was back in town, returning to host the Oscars for the ninth time. Mr. Crystal seems like a nice fellow to me, and I've enjoyed him in certain venues. But Sunday night, during the Oscars, I think he made me laugh three times over a three-hour-ten minute show.
While I don't believe he deserves accusations and innuendos of "racist," I believe he was guilty of some serious gaffes of taste. Sammy Davis Jr. was irrelevant to this year's Academy Awards, and blackface is so passé and offensive one can only wonder what he was thinking.
Just ask Ted Danson.
Some have written and said that Crystal was too old for the job. That's pretty ridiculous when one considers that just last year we had a couple of the youngest hosts on record and this non-dynamic duo, James Franco and Anne Hathaway, merit an award as all-time worst hosts.
But then, it took two people to equal David Letterman's embarrassing fiasco, in 1994. He attempted to turn the Awards ceremony into one of his nightly shows, complete with his "stupid pet tricks."
The failure was legendary. Just ask Oprah and Uma.
I've watched this annual Big Show for more than 55 years. I missed only a few during that time, so I've rounded out the number to 50. I've seen a wide variety of hosts: some not so good and some worse.
Then, of course, there were the greats like Bob Hope and Johnny Carson.
Bob Hope, who hosted a total of 18 times, made it look easy with his self-effacing humor. His running gag was to complain about his being "neglected" by the Awards Committee. Opening one show, he said, "Welcome to the Oscars, or, as they're known around my house, Passover."
Another time he said, "This may be my year; I saw one of the Oscars smiling."
Marlon Brando & Bob Hope fight for Oscar AP
I also watched the shortest Oscar show ever that Jerry Lewis co-hosted in 1959. When all the presentations were made, 20 minutes of scheduled TV time remained. So after a couple attempts at humor, he said, "Come on, let's everybody dance."
The attendees then walked on stage. It was fun to watch all those famous stars informally dancing and chatting with one another.
When Lewis spotted his erstwhile partner, Dean Martin, from whom he'd acrimoniously split a few years earlier, he picked up the microphone and ad-libbed, "And they said Dean and I would never appear on the same stage again." This received the biggest laugh of the night.
In 1963, Frank Sinatra hosted the Awards. He didn't need to be funny; he just had to be Sinatra-cool. A few weeks earlier he had appeared on "The Bob Hope Show." Bob pointed out that that year's Oscar show would be for the birds: "There's 'Birdman of Alcatraz,' 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' and 'Sweet Bird of Youth.' I don't know if it's the Oscars," he said, "or an Aviary."
The first of five shows hosted by Johnny Carson, in 1978, started off a bit shakily. Some people resented Carson for being the first host to come directly from television without ever having been in a motion picture. During the evening, Carson managed to win them over. The following year he opened the Awards ceremony with two classic lines: "Welcome to two hours of sparkling entertainment...spread over a four-hour show....I see a lot of new faces, especially on the old faces."
Although Dean Martin had hosted a successful weekly show for some years, he never hosted the Oscars. But during that 1979 Oscar show, he made an appearance as a presenter. Walking on stage with Raquel Welch, Dino looked into the camera and said,
"I'll lay eight to five that only two of you were looking at me." Ms. Welch tried to divert him by saying, "We're here to present the award for Best Score," to which Dino replied, "You mean they give awards for that now?"
A clearly annoyed Welch said, "This is getting very dicey." Yet host Carson threw the dice further by adding, "Raquel, that's a lovely outfit, although I don't believe you'll be invited to dinner by the Ayatollah Khomeini."
What makes a good Oscar host? I don't know. Maybe, as Justice Potter Stewart said about pornography, "I know it when I see it."
Maybe being humorous is more important that being funny. Perhaps a balance of class and irreverence delivered without animus. No overwrought, all too obvious efforts at being funny.
Spenser Tracy is credited with saying about acting, "Don't get caught at it." This may serve as good advice for an Oscar host: Be funny, sure, but don't get caught at it. Yet no Oscars host has been more over the top in his efforts to be funny than Billy Crysal.
What recent and current hosts seem to strive for is to be "edgy." Often, unfortunately, that spills into rude, disrespectful, and unkind. When discussing some hosts of yesteryear, the word most often mentioned is "class."
For more recent hosts, unfortunately, it is the rhyming word "crass."
Vance Garnett's writings have appeared in major newspapers and magazines. They have won the praise of such luminaries as Paul Harvey, William Safire, and Shirley Povich. Vance has shared his life experiences and knowledge of D.C. with the Washington Historical Society, the Kiwanis clubs of the Washington area, and on WAMU's "Kojo Nnamdi Show."
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