ABC Entertainment President Karey Burke confirmed during a panel at the TV Critics Association tour on Tuesday that nobody will be hosting this year’s Academy Awards, CNN reports. Nobody will replace Kevin Hart, who stepped down after an uproar over his past homophobic tweets and jokes.
Burke assured the critics in attendance that this year’s show would be kept to a three-hour running time. The choice of host might help, because nobody delivers short opening monologues when they’re hosting the Academy Awards, and nobody cares very much if the show runs over. Burke also said that the drama over nobody hosting might help the show’s ratings, since “the mystery” has everybody speculating about the first Oscar ceremony hosted by nobody.
This year’s hosting gig will be a singular honor for nobody, but it’s far from the first time nobody’s taken center stage. In Ancient Greece, nobody blinded Polyphemus and escaped from his island; by the Victorian era, nobody’s fame was so great that Emily Dickinson immortalized nobody in verse; and in the recent past, we were all captivated by nobody’s tumultuous relationship with Shel Silverstein. But this year will mark the first time nobody has hosted the Academy Awards, and the first time a major television network has used the event to introduce the country to nobody. Will the gambit pay off? Nobody knows.
