Top 10 ways to improve the Academy Awards

Maybe this puts me in the minority, but I thought Jon Stewart did a fine job as the Oscar host last year.

Hosting the Academy Awards is not an easy gig, but the "Daily Show" commentator had an appealing snarkiness. And he wasn't nearly as crude or crass as the worst of the recent bunch, Whoopi Goldberg.

This year's Oscar master of ceremonies is comedian/talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres. It should be interesting to see how well her similar, but less political, brand of snarkiness is received by the crowd and television audiences.

But even though I like both Stewart and DeGeneres — as other previous hosts like David Letterman — the Academy Awards aren't much fun for me. That's partly because I usually have to watch the telecast in the office and then write a report on deadline. (This year, however, I will be on vacation in Florida and might not even be watching.)

But it's largely because I've become bored with all the speechifying and other self-aggrandizement by Hollywood celebrities — not to mention the clunky musical numbers and skits, and the who-cares technical-type awards.

So in keeping with "The Late Show With David Letterman," here's my top 10 list of ways to improve the Academy Awards telecast (no wagering, please).

10. More displays of poor sportsmanship by losing nominees (think Faith Hill at the Country Music Awards).

9. Long-awaited meeting between Oprah Winfrey and Uma Thurman. (Suggested by David Letterman.)

8. Let the "Mystery Science Theater 3000" crew do onscreen commentary during the program.

7. Limit acceptance speeches to two words: Thank you.

6. Turn the entire thing into a musical.

5. Have the resulting musical numbers performed by dancing monkeys.

4. Let the "American Idol" judges critique the acceptance speeches.

3. Force the winners to do their impressions of either Christopher Walken, William Shatner or President Bush.

2. Have George Clooney accept all the awards.

And the No. 1 way to improve the Academy Awards telecast:

1. Post-Oscars food fight.

• AT LEAST THEY DON'T TELEVISE THESE AWARDS.

Coinciding with this weekend's Oscars, the Golden Raspberry Award Foundation and the Hastings Bad Cinema Society were planning to announce the results of their own voting — for the bad film trophies, the Razzies and the Stinkers.

The alleged comedies "Little Man" and "Zoom," as well as the unintentional comedy "Basic Instinct 2," were leading the nominations for both awards. The "winners" had not been disclosed as of press time but were expected to be posted prior to the Oscars on the respective Web sites, razzies.com and thestinkers.com.

---

E-mail: jeff@desnews.com