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Getting creativeTwo names: Anne Hathaway
and James Franco. Okay fine,
there are more. Seth MacFarlane.
Neil Patrick Harris. Hugh Jack-
man. These are the hosts who
don’t fit the old-school Oscar
mode. They aren’t comedians in
the traditional sense, hosts of
their own shows or Oscar produc-
tion alums. This is a class that
defies any cohesive definition
aside from “different.” But the
goal with outside-of-the-box
hosts is pretty obvious: get more
(and younger) eyeballs on the
broadcast. The results have been
a toss-up.
First, the not so good. Hatha-
way and Franco were an odd
couple from the beginning.
“Hathaway worked her derriere
off and Franco came off like that
lacrosse boy you wish your
daughter didn’t hang out with so
much,” wrote Post TV critic Hank
Stuever of the 2011 pairing.
Google any Oscars host ranking,
and this duo consistently land at
the bottom. Franco blamed it on
the writing. Hathaway originally
turned down the job and said it
was Franco who convinced her to
change her mind. “Your first in-
stinct is usually the right one,” she
later said in an interview.
Looking back, Rob Lowe prob-
ably could have used Hathaway’s
advice in 1989 before he sang an
awkward, reworked version of
“Proud Mary” alongside Snow
White during the hostless 61st
Academy Awards, in one of the
most universally panned Oscarsperformances to date.
“I couldn’t imagine a world
where a 25-year-old would stand
up to Marvin Hamlisch and go:
‘You know what? Your lyrics are a
little cheesy, sir,’ ” Lowe recalled to
the New York Times, referring to
the Oscar-winning composer who
wrote the opening number. “But
clearly, that might have been a
good idea.”
To be fair, musical numbers
have always had the potential to
be a third rail. Before he took the
stage in 2013, MacFarlane told the
Times of his upcoming hosting
gig: “It could be a disaster. Who
knows?” Well, probably whoever
wrote that “We Saw Your Boobs”
number during which the “Ted”
director, known for his off-color,
raunchy humor, pointed to all the
A-list actresses in the audience
whose breasts had appeared on
film. The audience was not
amused, but according to Mac-
Farlane, the academy asked him
to return the following year. (He
did not.)
Neil Patrick Harris, no stranger
to Hollywood, the stage or a good
soft shoe, opened the 2015 awards
with a song and dance. He even
did magic! But somehow the vet-
eran actor’s 2015 turn as emcee
didn’t completely gel, and the
next day’s reviews were not kind.
The actor was dubbed low-energy
and bland. His awkward jokes
about race (“Tonight we honor
Hollywood’s best and Whitest —
sorry, brightest”) at the height of
the #OscarsSoWhite campaigndidn’t help. For his part, Harris
didn’t expect an imminent return
to the telecast, telling HuffPost
that the gig “was fun to check off
the list, but for the amount of time
spent and the understandable
opinionated response, I don’t
know that it’s a delightful balance
to do every year or even again.”
But not all dancing showmen
are made equal. Hugh Jackman
got a rousing standing ovation for
his 2009 opening number, during
which he sang about the biggest
movies of the year (including an
“impromptu” duet with his even-
tual “Les Miserables” co-star
Hathaway). He delighted those in
the crowd with a mix of musical
genres, futuristic dance numbers
and some light mocking of the
movies nominated that still felt
respectful and celebratory. His
superhero was showing.
The number would go down in
history as one of the ceremony’s
best, and even won an Emmy
Award for outstanding original
music and lyrics. Laurence Mark,
that year’s Oscars producer, knew
Jackman had a chance to stand
out. “First of all, nothing against
comedians ... but we had just seen
a series of comedians [as hosts], ”
he told Vulture. “So, we thought,
‘Let’s get a song-and-dance man,
if we can, to change things up a
bit.’ Then, once you get a song-
and-dance man, you don’t ask
him to do a comic monologue. ...
That’s why Hugh Jackman turned
out, in a way, to be the perfect
answer to our prayers.”demy Awards
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JAVIER MUÑOZ AND
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CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: Host Hugh
Jackman, center, performs d uring the 200 9
Academy Awards. He got a rousing standing
ovation for his opening number. G oldie Hawn
was one of three co-hosts for the 1987 awards.
Billy Crystal brought his comedic talents to the
hosting gig in 1998.Anne Hathaway and James Franco Rob Lowe