Billy Crystal, Not the Muppets, Will Be Hosting the Oscars

It took a lot of imagination and thinking-outside-the-box for the Academy to come up with this year's Oscar host after Eddie Murphy said no thanks: it's Billy Crystal, who has hosted the Oscars approximately 40 times already. The number is actually eight, but still.

This is a safe choice, and not necessarily a bad one, but it does mean one thing: the Muppets will almost surely not be hosting the next Academy Awards.

Brooklyn resident Charlie Poekel's campaign was starting to pick up steam, but it looks as though it was too little too late.

We just got off the phone with Poekel, who has accepted his loss graciously.

"Bummer," he said. "But Billy Crystal's going to do a great job."

He continued, "I love Billy Crystal and I don't think the Oscars have been good since he did it. The reason I started the whole Muppet thing in the first place is that I thought the Oscars were lacking something, not that I thought things needed more Muppets." Poekel maintains, however, that things generally do need more Muppets.

Whether it was going to be Muppets or not, this is still a huge improvement over Hathaway and Franco.

[rgray@villagevoice.com] [@_rosiegray]

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