Two-Hosted Oscars

News broke this morning that the Oscar ceremony will have two hosts this year. That's only happened twice in the 21st century, but it wasn't always James Franco / Anne Hathaway disastrous...

Alec Baldwin & Steve Martin hosted in The Hurt Locker's year

We can assume the announcement of two means they're already negotiating with a pair. It's not like Oscar to go for sloppy seconds and the last time they did (Neil Patrick Harris) it was a bomb. So don't expect the Golden Globe wonders Amy Poehler & Tina Fey. They'd be excellent but it would be shocking. Here are the previous Oscar ceremonies that used two hosts -- this isn't new as much as the internet is like "whoa, TWO!" this morning -- but it is relatively uncommon in modern Academy Award ceremonies. There have been twelve ceremonies with three to six hosts but let's ignore them because that's a lot of names to type. 11 of the 87 ceremonies have had 2 hosts.

Pre-Televised Ceremonies with 2 hosts
1st Oscars - Douglas Fairbanks & William C deMille (Wings)
5th Oscars - Lionel Barrymore & Conrad Nagel (Grand Hotel)
17th Oscars - Bob Hope & John Cromwell (Going My Way)
18th Oscars - Bob Hope & Jimmy Stewart (The Lost Weekend)
20th Oscars - Agnes Moorehead & Dick Powell (Gentleman's Agreement)

Televised Ceremonies with 2 hosts
In the early days they had a side ceremony in NY so the two host system came in handy
25th Oscars - Bob Hope & Conrad Nagel (The Greatest Show on Earth)
26th Oscars - Donald O'Connor & Fredric March (From Here to Eternity)
27th Oscars - Bob Hope & Thelma Ritter (On the Waterfront)
29th Oscars - Jerry Lewis & Celeste Holm (Around the World in 80 Days)

The Opening of the 27th with Bob Hope in LA and Thelma Ritter in NYC
From the mid 50s to the mid 00s it was either group hosting or just one host

82nd Oscars -Steve Martin & Alec Baldwin (The Hurt Locker)
83rd Oscars - James Franco & Anne Hathaway (The King's Speech)

Which twosome are you hoping for? Here are some other ideas... with absolutely no attention paid to what's actually plausible. Vote for your favorite!

Pick a dream couple to host the Oscars

Jackman & Hathaway

Lily & Meryl

Jennifer Lawrence & Amy Schumer

Charlize & Channing

Stewart & Colbert

Tina & Amy (sloppy seconds!)

Chris Pratt & Anna Faris

Kristen Wiig & Melissa McCarthy

Emma Thompson & Helena Bonham-Carter

I HAVE A BRILLIANT IDEA. I'll tell you in the comment section.

Quiz Maker

Titus Andromedon and the "GBF"

Please welcome new contributor Kyle Turner to the team, who has previously Smackdown'ed right here. In the wake of the Emmy nominations, he's here to talk about one very particular film & tv trope - Editor
 

In Tina Fey’s book of autobiographical essays Bossypants, she describes with delight and nostalgia her time growing up working at the Delaware County Summer Showtime program for the arts. And while her experiences about her background in theater are the surface, it’s her relationship to the queer community that serves as, perhaps, the thesis and thematic core of the essay. She writes carefully, balancing emotional reaction of the present juxtaposed against examining the events in hindsight. She talks about the lesbian best friends she had for several years, the way her hometown was like “Gay Wales” (“What Wales is to crooners, my hometown may be to homosexuals – meaning, there seems to be a disproportionate number of them and they are the best in the world!”), and, most important, the role of LGBT people in her personal narrative(s). She writes

I thought I knew everything after that first summer. ‘Being gay is not a choice. Gay people were made that way by God,’ I’d lectured Mr. Garth proudly. But it took me another whole year to figure out the second part: ’Gay people were made that way by God, but not solely for my entertainment.’ ”

In one quote, Fey pinpoints a problem that mainstream media often has when depicting queer (usually male) characters: they’re often asexual, thinly written, or designed with tropes built in as opposed to given the benefit of complexity that their straight counterparts more reflexively are given. They are, in a word, tokenized. [More...]

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Beauty Break: What a Firecracker!

 Happy Fourth of July !!!  Party safely. Here's Ann Miller, and 20 other beautiful firecrackers to celebrate with you (who would you like to set off sparks with?) after the jump...

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FYC: Tituss Burgess for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy

Team Experience is sharing their dream picks for the Emmys each day at Noon. Here's Margaret...

Tituss Burgess' performance as Titus Andromedon on Netflix's Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is nothing short of genius. (Before we get any further into this, it should be established that Tituss with two S's is the actor, and Titus with one S is the character. Confusing, yes, but blame Tina Fey and Robert Carlock.)

His vocal control is exquisite, and we see it tested time and again as the writers work up excuses for Titus to belt whenever possible. His grip on his comedy is similarly iron-clad. Every gesture, every line reading, is laser-precise. He never fails to deliver the biggest laugh of whatever scene he's in--he's a dexterous physical comic and quite nimble with Fey & Carlock's twisty punchlines-- but he also lends a distinct pathos to the performance that makes it more than just funny. 

And he's tremendously gif-able. Sweet mercy, how gif-able.

Though often ridiculous, Burgess makes damn well sure we know that Titus is the one telling the joke. Even the most absurd lines fly out of his mouth with self-awareness and complete conviction. (In lieu of apologizing for putting his foot in his mouth, he shrugs: "I am as God made me.") One of the things that makes Kimmy Schmidt so special is its improbable sense of melancholy. Hints about Titus' past point to frustration and pain, and that's present in his performance even as he lives confidently and without contrition.

But most of all, he's just purely and entirely funny. He makes me laugh more than any other TV character, certainly today, maybe ever. To deny him would be like denying Jane Krakowski's Jenna Maroney, which...  well... please don't make that mistake again, Emmys.

Previously: Ann Dowd talks The Leftovers and Nathaniel fusses over the Emmy ballot

Link-a-round

Cinemascope Ari Folman (Waltz With Bashir) is working on a stop motion animated film about Anne Frank. Yes, that Anne Frank
The Stake has a great piece on Tina Fey's firestarter comedy, especially its willingness to constantly poke at our racial discomforts
Playbill has fun making Stephen King's books into stage musicals
Pajiba has seen (well the first ten minutes) of a porn parody of Guardians of the Galaxy with characters named Star Load, and Bonin
EW shares the 20 best episodes of Mad Men. Great choices overall - I'll be furious forever that Jon Hamm and Elisabeth Moss didn't win Emmys for "The Suitcase"
MNPP I missed Matthew Goode's birthday but this is the perfect gif set with which to celebrate

Women and Hollywood the annual Crystal Awards for women in film are here and this year's honorees are Nicole Kidman and Ava DuVernay
Boy Culture celebrates the one and only Buster Crabbe with some pre-code footage
Deep Dish celebrates Bette Davis on her birthday with lots of clips from TV & film
The Guardian raves about Carey Mulligan's career and artistry. She is currently playing Bill Nighy's ex-lover on Broadway at the moment in Skylight. Yes, Nighy. He is 36 years older.
Theater Mania yes, it's true. Cats will be revived on Broadway
Salon Michelangelo Signorile writes about the bleak state of gay characters on TV, usually sexless even in shows where their straight counterparts have plenty of physical intimacy (this is especially sad to read after Looking's cancellation though the article doesn't mention that)
Comics Alliance the superhero craze has officially jumped shark? an Avengers inspired menswear line is upon us. No, not a boys underoos line, a menswear line. Kind of brings us back to that gender doublestandard discussion again, right?
Huff Post Comedy speaking of double standards read this great piece on the headlines that would follow Madonna if she did the same things celebrity men her age or older did
Maria Shriver's Blog also has a piece on ageism and sexism via the prism of Madonna
i09 proof that awards are always political -- and it isn't just Oscar that's perpetually under attack -- in this investigative piece about a very weird two years for sci-fi's "Hugo" Awards
TV Line "The Muppet Show" will be returning to ABC at some point. Let this serve as your reminder that they tried to revive it one other time in the 1990s and Michelle Pfeiffer was a guest! Here is video proof. (Yes, I was very excited that night)

Unfortunately, as in The Muppets (2011) they thought it wise to invent a new Muppet character that wasn't even a tenth as good as any of the originals. Why does this keep happening? I'm all for shaking things up lest one be fossilized in nostalgia but if you can't come up with a good character DO NOT steal screen time from the good ones!