How well do you think Seth MacFarlane hosted the Oscars?

He was an equal opportunity offender. He hit just about every major group with a poor taste joke.

He wasn’t awful, his jokes just weren’t very funny.

With his mostly unfunny cutesy-naughty jabs followed by his annoying oh-I’m-just-joshin’ you grin, I was sick to death of him after 10 minutes. Most of the presenters and winners’ speeches were also lame (notable exception: Danny Day-Lewis). I haven’t watched an Oscar ceremony for years, and last night’s show reminded me why.

I did love the Adele’s and Shirley Bassey’s Bond numbers.

tb;dw

I think he did okay. Seth does everything he can to showcase his unique melding of vocal talents and humor. It just doesn’t work that well on the Oscars stage.

As for the “boobs” song, they cleverly pulled that off using a pre-recorded skit with the whole ‘Shatner from the future’ gimmick. My guess is that they did this in order to prepare the actresses mentioned ahead of time and make sure they were okay with it. Staged.

Seth MacFarlane has busied himself recently hosting Celebrity Roasts, and that is probably the top of his comfort range. He can be vile, crude, insulting, and creepy there, and everyone is happy with that. Those attributes don’t work for the Oscars. His tastelessness, combined with jokes that just weren’t funny, made a long show difficult to sit through.
My daughter, who generally likes his shows, said parts of it were like watching a live version of Family Guy. She didn’t mean that in a good way.
The best hosts were Johnny Carson, Bob Hope, and Billy Crystal, and it is easy to see why. They were all respectful, stylish, funny, and dignified. Seth MacFarlane is just creepy and unfunny.

They should have hired Ricky Gervais or Jimmy Carr.

That whole show was so boring. The standard for entertainment and comedy in this country is obnoxiously low if you ask me.

It was a little bit annoying and tasteless and mostly innocuous enough.

What I really liked this year was the use of the “Jaws” theme to change award recipients who went on too long off the stage. I wish they had used it a bit more. Who do these people think they are? Movie stars or something?

I’d say the orchestra is getting uppity now that they are housed in a separate building and you can’t spit on them any more.

I agree with @filmfann. Whoever hired him had to know exactly what they were getting, so I can only conclude that they want the Oscars to be about controversy and gossip now. I think that’s a mistake. Much is made every year about how the Oscars are boring and too long… and so I suppose that they want to increase viewership, but at some point they’ll have to decide between having higher ratings and having it be the Oscars. This is supposed to be about celebrating people’s craft. Seriously, reducing Jodie Foster’s performance in The Accused to “We saw your boobs”? That’s not ok. That’s really not ok.

I enjoy Seth MacFarlane’s comedy in the right venue. This just isn’t where he belongs.

Didn’t care, watched cybermen instead/.

Not a great choice. I would have gone with Bob Hope but Bob is not comming down from breakfast anymore.

It seems like most are in agreement. Seth can be good in the right venue, but the Oscars is not the proper place for him to use his low brow humor. It makes the show almost trashy :/

@ragingloli Jimmy Carr! That would be fantastic. Only thing better than that would be Stephen Fry, but 99% of the audience wouldn’t get the jokes. It would be you, me, and about 15 other Flutherites laughing our asses off, and a lot of confused celebrities.

Seth did good, but he was working with scraps, like having a gig in bide a wee rest home for the bewildered…tough crowd & the wrong mix for his material.
Jimmy Carr & Ricky Gervais would have gone for the jugular in a much more savage fashion, Stephen Fry hosted the BAFTA’s & did a fine job, but i’d like to see Frankie Boyle or Sarah Millican get the gig, now that would be a hoot.

I caught the last three awards. I liked the Loser song at the end.

Link to the whole shebang, anyone?

@zensky It’s on Hulu

Aww… I missed the BAFTAs this year. Damn not having cable.

I agree with what a lot of people have been saying so far. I didn’t find it “shocking” or “offensive”, but it didn’t seem like quite the right match. Either way, I saw all of the second half and thought he was fine in that. It did seem a little like the Oscars were “trying too hard” to gain a new audience and we saw how well that went with awkward James Franco and Anne Hathaway making annoying trendy Facebook references to appeal to the “hip” crowd. I’d rather just have the Oscars be an awards show; edgy trendy appeal be damned.

The whole show was so meh I went to bed at 10:30.

I liked it although I thought all the interrruptions made things a little jerky (Captain Kirk and all). I was surprised at well he could sing and dance.

Steve Martin, Billy Crystal et al…yawnfest!

I found some of Seth’s stuff funny, but some of it just stupid. They need to bring back Hugh Jackman, who was the best host they’ve ever had.

@janbb , so true, so true.

I would have enjoyed the evening better if I had watched Family Guy and The Walking Dead like I usually do on a Sunday night.

I like Seth and I thought he would liven up the award show, but the show was boring as usual.

There were a few funny moments. But, other than that the show was kinda dull.

I thought the acceptance speeches went on too long, as usual. I was happy to hear the “jaws” music earlier on in the show, but disappointed that they didn’t use it more aggressively later. Actually, what I’d really like is for people to plan decent acceptance speeches and to have practiced them.

Meh… it was okay. I did laugh at the Lincoln joke, and the wisecrack about trying to make Tommy Lee Jones laugh, but I would have preferred a different host. I liked it when Hugh Jackman did it a few years ago.

meh.

I was more disappointed with the format changes.

Explain to me why the orchestra wasn’t there? Also, explain why they got rid of the announcer? Usually, she is the one to tell what will be coming next. I think that is partially to blame for part of the boredom with Seth. Normally, the host has more breaks off camera to prepare.

Didn’t watch it since Lincoln is the only movie worth being nominated as Best Picture. The Oscars lowered their standards since they need to promote as essential Hollywood movies that are mostly rubbish and mediocre. Argo? C’mon. But hey, really? A boob song? Shit, have to watch it now!

@Seek_Kolinahr If only we got Hulu – life would be grand… alas – outisde the US of A… sorry… we don’t broadcast in your neck of the war craziness planet AREA.

I thought the opening boobs song was very out of place.
It would have been funny coming from a Family Guy character but it was childish.
I also think he missed an opportunity to start with “saw your breasts” (instead of boobs) then make his way to “be our guest”

Other than that I think his writing was dull, but he mostly stayed out of the way.

@mazingerz88 I really liked Argo. :(

Argo was the only movie I saw this year = recom. by my brother and worth the price of the popcorn.

He has a likable enough personality but I find his humor pretty inane and adolescent for the most part. I think that makes it out of place for the Oscars. Did you see Charlize Theron’s reaction during the stupid boobs song? She looked disgusted. I was actually embarrassed for him and William Shatner too.

The dancing was mostly horrible too. For some reason the women were worse than the male dancers. I kept thinking of Mickey Rooney in Yankee Doodle Dandy and Ray Bolger in The Wizard of Oz and thinking “That’s when actors knew how to dance!”
I realize it’s an awards show and not a musical but I’m sure they could have hired better dancers and a better choreographer. It was really lame.

Wow, @Earthgirl. You really didn’t like it, did you? I didn’t think the dancing was that bad. They have all the best dancers in Hollywood, anyway, so I wouldn’t blame them. It was the choreographer that is to blame.

Like @gambitking said above, the boob song was staged. The actresses were playing along, or acting, when the camera was on them for their reaction during the song. They have a sense of humor and can laugh at themselves.

I wouldn’t waste my time. “Djanngo and Chains is like Chris Brown beating up and Rhianna”? Is that one of the lines? Disguisting mysogynist. The Acadamy is crazy for having low lives like that host it.

…Not like I care about Oscars in the first place but it should be for the general public and he is not.

Ok, so the reactions in the boob song were staged. But was it funny? What is the point of it if it is so inane that it isn’t even funny? It was a total waste in my opinion.

So family guy is not in the least funny, and that is when seth mcdonald has lots of time writing and has animators and voice actors to deliver his material, so why did anyone think it would be a good idea to have this unfunny man host the event?

How well? Well enough, imo. I’ve seen more boring Oscar hosting. The Oscars did not hire Mcfarlane to play another person. He was there to shock a bit and offend and that he did, based on reactions here.

What was more offensive to me was the Oscars nominating Silver Linings Playbook, Argo, Beasts and Django Unchained for Best Picture. Entertaining but such small unworthy films. The Oscars continues to diminish itself in my view.

Mcfarlane’s fine but I wish they’ve used Stewie and Brian holograms to host the better part of the show. Those two would be funnier. Brian respects everything about Hollywood while Stewie could switch back and forth from being the naive clueless fool to satiric knave.

I think the funniest thing of the entire night was having William Shatner anywhere near an Oscar, that’s the closest woodentop will ever get to acting honours.

@mazingerz88 Just to clarify,I wasn’t “offended” by his act. If he had tittered about naked people going to the “shower” in Schindler’s List or breastfeeding in The Grapes of Wrath, I would have been offended. This was just stupid. And believe me, I get that the real “joke” was about going over the line comedically and offending people. As such, it tried to redress some of the earlier gaffes made by other hosts like Ricky Gervais and remind people to have a sense of humor.

@ucme Hey, them’s fightin’ words, pardner.

@Seek_Kolinahr Look, I know you’re a dedicated trekkie, I can just about forgive you for that but even he admits to being a shit actor.
I saw his roast recently & they absolutely tore him to pieces, he took it in the spirit intended, but you just knew he agreed with every word.

No, I admit, his acting isn’t awesome, like “OMG, that performance totally moved me!”

But the entertainment value is definitely there. And I enjoy his “acting” wuh-HAY more than a good 90% of the people who have ever gotten one of those statues.

I’m still surprised that people don’t realize the boob song was staged and the actresses were in on it. Not to mention that it was part of a skit with William Shatner coming from the future and showing him how he “ruined” the awards by doing inappropriate stuff (like the boob song) which he then tries to fix. The whole thing was a joke. It was supposed to be inappropriate. You have to have watched (or need to watch) the entire opening skit, otherwise you won’t understand the context in which the boob song was presented.

Shatner’s toupee deserved a nomination for best supporting role, especially in T.J.Hooker.
I’m going to name this thread Oscar the Grouch in honour of all the negative feedback for Seth…just because I can :-)

Did you ever see his older stuff? Twilight Zone, Ray Bradbury movies… The guy’s been a Sci-Fi god his whole life.

No I never did & try as I might & believe me I tried, I just never got into Star Trek.
I think he’s a cool guy & he definitely has the ability to laugh at himself, he made a brief but funny cameo role in Airplane 2 with a parody of Kirk I remember.

@ucme I loved the Shatner scenes in Airplane II! I think that was the first time he made fun of his Star Trek role, and it was probably the funniest attempt.

@glacial Perhaps his fee proved a tantalising lure.

@diavolobella even knowing that, it still feels kind of inappropriate for the Oscars…

@cutiepi92 That may be true, but they chose to hire him knowing exactly what his schtick is and they approved it before the broadcast so it’s not entirely on him. If they didn’t want Seth McFarlane type humor they should have hired someone else. He wasn’t performing with carte blanche. It got approved all the way up the chain of command.

But it is still wrong for him to have hosted the show, whether they approved every line or not.

@flo Why is it wrong? He’s handing out awards for acting, not a Nobel Prize. He was chosen for a reason. Sunday’s Oscar ceremony scored the biggest TV audience in three years, and edgy new host Seth MacFarlane helped boost interest from young men, despite getting a mauling from TV critics. source I think the Academy got what they expected from Seth, a larger audience.

I reckon the TV critics were Waldorf & Stadler.

Hey @ucme ! Just for the record, I don’t look anything like those guys, but then, I’m just an armchair critic. :)

@jonsblond Why is he wrong? Are you giving me a tough question?

No, @flo. I think @jonsblond wants to know why you think it was wrong for him to host the show. It’s not as if the answer is obvious.

@flo You said “But it is still wrong for him to have hosted the show, whether they approved every line or not.”

I was just wondering why you think it was wrong for Seth to host the show. @wundayatta is correct.

Hey @Earthgirl More like Miss Piggy eh?
I’m guessing at your reaction here ;¬}

If it is obvious to me, it would be more than obvious to you.

…And it is in my first answer above.

Just a random site

OK, I just watched the boobs song thing.

It was hilarious.

Sorry, but when you choose to show off the girls on the silver screen, you choose to let people talk about them. I like the song as an icebreaker. Get all those stick-up-the-arse celebrities who’ve spent the last six days doing their hair and spraypainting on their dresses to loosen up a little.

I sing that song in my head all the time now, it’s wedged in there good & tight…for the time being.

I saw your boobs @ucme and @Seek_Kolinahr…

Err, hallucinogenic drugs?

It is true. ucme has massive manboobs.

Yeah & the Pope has a well used vagina.

Not many people know that.

An old german cunt…who knew?

He is Bavarian, not German.

Did someone say “doughnuts”?

Jeez, I just noticed this is in General! Long live the Pope! Long live the Pope!

@ragingloli That’s right, create distance between yourselves, I know I would.
Doughnuts…gimme a jam one that oozes down my chin.

I can think of a few kids who wish they hadn’t ordered the Bavarian Cream.

Pope Been-a-dick won’t be amused.

Exposing one’s boobs and then being offended that some joke is made about it makes zero sense.

@flo In some cases serious actresses, like for instance, Helen Hunt, expose their breasts for art’s sake. If that makes them the brunt of adolescent humor, I am sure they’re prepared for it. But it doesn’t make the humor any less adolescent.

@Earthgirl maybe not, (added: it is no less adolescent) but why do people need to expose themselves and just in general need to get that intimate with perfect strangers anyway? Yuk! What about camera techniques, they can use it for anything else.

@flo Well in the case of the movie, The Sessions it would have been hard to be true to the subject without really showing any nudity. I guess it might have been possible. Maybe it would have been just as well not to, but the people involved in the movie felt it necessary. I haven’t seen it so I can’t judge but I trust that ,at least as far as Helen Hunt is concerned it was something she believed was important to conveying the message and the story Ditto for Kristin Stewart in The Road

@Earthgirl ”...the people involved in the movie felt it necessary” That could be a fact but is really not an argument. Look at past movies made with special effects. Look at LIFE of PI too.

@Earthgirl And are you saying that the decision is upto the actresses instead of the studios? and these women just keep insisting on it?

And by the way originally, I was referring to the exposing of the breasts at the awards etc. not in the movies.

@flo Anne Hathaway turned down Katherine Heigl’s part in “Baby Mama”, because while she is comfortable showing her body, she felt imitating delivering a child – something she was looking forward to as an intimate moment between herself and her chosen partner – was beyond her “no” point.

Before making any movie, nude scenes are discussed, negotiated, and agreed upon before the actress signs a contract for the role. There are ample opportunities to walk away if one is uncomfortable. They are not slave laborers.

@Seek_Kolinahr Did you mean Knocked Up?

That’s the one. Forgive me. I enjoyed both movies, but I think I saw the two of them in the same trip to the Redbox.