MacFarlane meets Oscar as host of 85th Academy Awards

By Jay Bobbin © Zap2it

Hopefully, Oscar is ready for Seth MacFarlane, because MacFarlane sounds ready for him.

The “Family Guy” creator and “Ted” director and co-writer will live the dream of many a film fan by serving as host of this year’s Oscars, as ABC airs the Motion Picture Academy’s 85th ceremony Sunday, Feb. 24, from Los Angeles’ Dolby Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center.

Since being named by firsttime Oscar producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron (“Smash”) as a surprise choice for the job, MacFarlane has become an Oscar nominee as well: He’s up for writing the lyrics to the “Ted” song “Everybody Needs a Best Friend.”

“In general, we’re trying to make this a more ubiquitous Oscars,” MacFarlane says. “I think that a lot of times, there’s pressure to keep everything about the movies that are nominated that year. While that is a big part of this, we’re also trying to find ways to broaden it a little bit.”

To that end, a 50th-anniversary salute to the James Bond movies will encompass Adele’s first live rendering of “Skyfall” - another nominee for best song - and Dame Shirley Bassey will croon the classic “Goldfinger.”

Also scheduled is a tribute to movie musicals of recent vintage ... including Oscar’s best picture of 2002, “Chicago,” of which Meron and Zadan were executive producers. And Barbra Streisand will offer her first Oscar performance since her tune “Evergreen” (from “A Star Is Born”) won in 1977.

Hollywood, and television viewers, got a taste of how MacFarlane might fare at the Oscars from his often irreverent midJanuary teaming with actress Emma Stone to announce the nominations. He maintains that wasn’t meant as a dry run for the main event.

“I think that’s how most of the press perceived it, but it really was not that. It was something that the Academy thought would be kind of nice, to make that usually dry ceremony a little more interesting. That was really all it was supposed to be.”

Nevertheless, MacFarlane was reviewed widely for that occasion as if he were presiding over the actual Oscars.

“It was kind of ridiculous,” he says. “That was the result of an overabundance of entertainment media. People are just desperate to write about something, so they turned that into a fullon review. It’s 5 in the morning (Pacific time), and you’re doing a five-minute announcement, so it’s a little silly to review that like a show.”

The Oscar contests themselves are intriguing this year, since some results won’t be sure bets. Best actor candidate Daniel Day-Lewis (“Lincoln”) and best supporting actress contender Anne Hathaway (“Les Miserables”) seem to be all-but-certain victors, based on their history of winning virtually every honor in their categories during this filmaward season. However, others aren’t as predictable.

Jessica Chastain has been a best actress victor many times for “Zero Dark Thirty,” but Jennifer Lawrence earned last month’s Screen Actors Guild Award for “Silver Linings Playbook.” There, actors voted for actors, which is how it also works in the Oscars. That also may help “Argo” in the best picture race; that film’s cast was named best ensemble by SAG, and many of the same voters weigh in on Oscar’s best picture ... plus, Ben Affleck has won many awards for directing “Argo” after being denied that nomination in the Academy Awards.

The best supporting actor contest makes history this year, marking the first time every nominee in an Oscar acting race has won the statue already. It could go any of several ways: Tommy Lee Jones (“Lincoln”) won the ics Association’s Critics’ Choice Award.

With “Ted” star Mark Wahlberg and the blue-language-prone title teddy bear set as Oscar presenters, Norah Jones also will perform, reprising the MacFarlane-co-written number she sang in that film.

“I was positive we were not going to be on that list,” MacFarlane says of his nomination, “so that was a nice surprise. I’ve always thought of myself as something of a Hollywood outsider. I’ve never been in that inner circle, and I don’t know that this will change that too much.”

The Oscar gig is the peak of MacFarlane’s high-profile appearances of late. He hosted the season premiere of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” - which many consider the main factor in earning him the Academy Awards stint - and Barbara Walters put him on her “10 Most Fascinating People of 2012” list. But to fans of “Family Guy,” as well as “American Dad” and “The Cleveland Show” (which he cocreated), MacFarlane has long been a star.

“Surprisingly, it’s not that much different,” he says of his current showbiz status. “After the (Oscar) ceremony is over, it might be, but not on a day-to-day basis so far. The only changes have been working on the ceremony itself and the amount of preparation. I’ve been drowning more than I ever have before in my own schedule, but other than that, it’s been more or less the same. Amusingly enough, I still get as many remarks from people about the Comedy Central Roasts I’ve done as about the Oscars.”

SAG Award - again, possibly giving him the edge, since actors who voted on that also vote on the Oscars - Christoph Waltz (”Django Unchained”) took the Golden Globe Award, and Philip Seymour Hoffman (“The Master”) earned the Broadcast Film Crit-

ACROSS

8. “Presidio __” (2002-03) 11.

43. “__ in Trees”

44. Actress Susan

45. “Sesame Street” fellow 46. 007, for one

Down

1. Cambridge inst.

2. “__ Wednesday”; 1973 movie for Liz Taylor

3. Penniless

4. Barney Rubble’s pal

5. Cartoon pooch

6. “The Atom __ Show” (1965-68)

7. “__ Dark”; 1987 Lance Henriksen movie

8. “Pretty __ All in a Row”; 1971 Rock Hudson film

9. Harris and Norton

10. John Munch or Fin Tutuola: abbr.

15. “Cabaret” star

16. The __ Channel

19. Spill the beans

20. “The Golden Girls” role

22. Actor Barry

23. Magnani or Paquin

29. “Waiting for __”; play by Clifford Odets

31. West and Sandler

33. Series set at a school

34. Woody’s boy

35. “The __ Sack”; 1957 Jerry Lewis movie

36. Mine car load

37. Mr. Kilmer

38. “A Nightmare on __ Street”; 2010 remake

39. Pelosi, for one: abbr.

40. “__ Given Sunday”; 1999 Al Pacino movie