Seth MacFarlane talks to the media after the announcement of the Academy Awards nominees last month. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
Academy Awards host Seth MacFarlane has a message for the Oscars: Be careful what you wish for ’cause you just might get it.
The raunchy-minded creative genius behind TV’s “Family Guy” and “American Dad” and the summer box office hit “Ted” says the 85th annual Academy Awards on Sunday will be “a very thin-skinned room” for his ribald sense of humor.
“It’s a really bad match,” MacFarlane told CNN. “I’m the wrong guy to do this.”
Oscars 2013: Complete coverage
What do you think? Is MacFarlane a good match for the Oscars? Will the Academy Awards regret turning over the reins to him? Will he push the envelope?
MacFarlane was joking, of course, in his comments to CNN. Or was he?
Let’s not forget MacFarlane’s surprising appearance at the announcement of the Academy Awards nominees last month. (MacFarlane is the only Oscar host to read the nominations since Charlton Heston in 1972.)
Seth MacFarlane: His career in pictures
MacFarlane’s comments were scathing, and included a Hitler joke and the portrayal of screenwriters and directors as lazy. This test run, if you will, for the Oscar show was immediately deemed a flop by Hollywood’s power players. (The rest of us? We were reminding ourselves to DVR the Oscars.)
MacFarlane will be walking a fine line Sunday night.
If he goes easy on the single biggest night in Hollywood, he could be portrayed as a sellout. But if he lets loose on the A-list audience, he runs the risk of offending Hollywood’s elite just as he’s making the leap from TV to film.
Of course, if he can replicate the success of “Ted,” which has an international box-office haul of more than $535 million, he’ll likely always find an open door in Hollywood, somewhere.
MacFarlane’s interview with CNN, however, seemed to underscore his unwillingness to be P.C.
Exhibit A? Calling the media biased, suggesting that those rave reviews for Golden Globe hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler were practically written before the duo took the stage.
“I thought they were fantastic,” MacFarlane said. “But they are also beloved by the press …. There are certain people who have a kind of a carte blanche, ‘You’re awesome, we love you no matter what you do.’ That said, they were fantastic. But I wouldn’t know if they weren’t from reading the press.”
–Rene Lynch
@renelynch
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