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Lucky there’s a Family Guy to host the Oscars
Tuesday 2nd October 2012 | David
The man behind Family Guy and American Dad seems to be going down well as the choice to host the 2013 awards ceremony
Why didn’t anybody think of this before? Seth MacFarlane has been chosen to host the 2013 Oscars – which is frankly awesome news. The decision follows some rather dodgy past ones, with event co-ordinators hoping that he will bring in the younger viewers whilst basically not messing up. Previous attempts to do this haven’t gone down so well, with the usually flawless James Franco seeming out of sorts last year, and Ricky Gervais adding his own brand of self-absorbed arrogance to the Golden Globes. Hopefully, MacFarlane can turn things around – and, to be honest, he does seem like the perfect package.
For one thing, he is extremely popular along a broad demographic. The numbers speak for themselves: 18-49 year olds made up 14.9 million viewers of last year’s ceremony, which sounds huge until you compare it to the 113 million who tuned in to watch the Super Bowl. MacFarlane can change that: his TV shows Family Guy and American Dad have reached stratospheric altitudes of popularity and the movie Ted has gained vast levels of interest and positive feedback. Where MacFarlane goes, audiences follow.
He’s also clearly got a lot of stage presence. He performed ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ at the Royal Albert Hall a few years ago without breaking a sweat and this is not his presenting debut: not everybody can host a Comedy Roast of the enormous ego on legs that is Charlie Sheen, but Seth managed it well enough. For someone who we don’t necessarily see a lot of (given that he lends himself extremely well to voice acting) he is very presentable, and can undoubtedly hold a crowd in person as well as through animation.
It seems like MacFarlane should go down a storm at the ceremony, but then again, Franco was expected to have the same effect – and look how that turned out. Still, if Seth can keep his cool under the immense pressure of hosting such a massive event, it will surely be an absolute success. Let’s just hope he retains the suaveness – and singing ability – of a sober Brian Griffin, instead of turning into a bumbling, Peter-style wreck.
By Dave Rees
@DavidWRees
