"...They Were Found...Days Later...Waiting for The Envelope To Be Opened..."

Pop culture pop quiz today.
Do you recognize any of these names?

Marion Cotillard.
Javier Bardem.
Tilda Swinton.
Marketa Iglova.

The channel six eyewitness news team, maybe?

How about the odds on favorite luge team from the forthcoming Olympics?

Nope. Sorry, time’s up.

They are the winners of this year’s Academy Awards for, respectively, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress and co-composer of Best Song.
Okay, so considering the category, only Marekta’s mom would be expected to know who she is.

But, I believe the point is made.
As Billy Crystal said in an Oscar telecast a few years ago, “Who are these people?”

Now as a creative guy, I’m the last person in the world who would seriously denigrate the accomplishment of any artist and, in fact, I’m secretly impressed that this year’s major award nominees were obviously actors of ability and not just “big names” who were nominated primarily because they are “big names” (“….and the award goes to…..Mariah Carey and Britney Spears in the wonderful remake of “Whatever Happened To Baby Jane!…”).

Thing is, though, that the reports are in and the ratings for the Oscar telecast indicate that if and when an award is given for most passengers deserting a sinking ship, Titanic is going to get beat out, and then some, by the television audience who used to watch with excitement as the polite phrase “may I have the envelope, please?” was heard.

Personally, I don’t remember exactly when it happened.
But, somewhere, a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I stopped caring who won.
I used to watch. I used to enjoy. I used to even get a little excited about the whole thing.

Admittedly, I was probably, like, twelve at the time.

The “experts” all have an opinion about why people really don’t care about Oscar anymore.
The show is too long.
There are too many other award shows now and it makes Oscar less special than it used to be.
The show is too long.
Movie stars are seen less and less like heroes to be admired and more and more like pampered, overpaid prima donnas who we couldn’t care less about.

Oh. And for years, critics and viewers alike have been complaining that the show is too long.

Admittedly, if your kid won the “Best Use of Duct Tape by a Gaffer’s Assistant”, you and your entire family tree would be parked in front of the flat screen cheering and screaming like a New York Giant fan at the final gun.

But, be honest. If it’s not your kid, then those awards become the designer gown draped equivalent of having to sit through someone else’s home movies.

And while every year the pre-show hype promises a leaner, meaner ceremony while the ceremony actually ends up dragging on to the point where you think you’d prefer to sit through “The English Patient” again, the simple truth is that unless the producers of this thing finally die and get replaced by the cast of the young and the restless, the show will always be longer than common sense or sanity might prefer.

So, if we can’t raise the bridge…how about we lower the river?

And we do that simply by tweaking the format a little here and there; going with what we know attracts, rather than repels, television viewers.

For example…

“Oscar or No Oscar”…Howie and the girls of Silicone Valley are on the stage with big Oscar shaped cases. Each nominee gets to pick one case and open one other. If the award they are up for is in the case they open, voila! They win and get to give their acceptance speech. If not, then they get whatever award is in the case they picked to begin with. Odds are that wont be their award either, so think how much fun it will be when Best Actress nominee Judi Dench goes home with the award for “Best Use Of Duct Tape By A Gaffer’s Assistant”!

Are You Smarter than Last Year’s Winner?…Jeff Foxworthy and a panel of fifth grade kids test the nominees with a simple question….Can you name last year’s winner of the award you’re nominated for? Lots of laughs and hijinks as the bulk of this year’s bunch are put on the spot and forced to admit that, much like the rest of us, they forgot who won last year ten seconds after the award show went to late local news.

The Power of Ten Oscars…Drew Carey hosts and two non-movie star contestants see who can come closer to guessing which Oscars the studio audience really gives a patoot about seeing handed out, up to ten. The hook here is that if it turns out nobody really cares about Best Achievement in Cinematography by a Non Union Director of Photography, then the odds on favorite wont win it….but, then, neither will any of the other nominees, making it no big loss for the fave.

And if all else fails….

American Oscar…all of the nominees have thirty seconds to do a little of what they did to get nominated in the first place and try to impress the terrible trio who gave us Sanjaya and Taylor Hicks. And the problem of show length will be solved once and for all…because Paula will love everybody rendering her opinion useless, Randy will probably get punched out for calling the wrong elderly actress “dawg” and Simon will save the day by hating everyone and everything about the show and easily blowing through all of the nominees in the time it takes to sit through another episode of “According To Jim”.

Once the show is thirty minutes, including commercials, I think it’s possible viewership might actually increase a little.

Then all of us can be sincere when we say…

“I’d like to thank the Academy…”