Oscar time, and the pickin’ ain’t easy. To paraphrase George Gershwin’s classic ballad, Summertime, And The Livin’ Is Easy.
The pickin’s include the Best Picture nominees during this 90th Academy Awards ceremony, airing on March 4th. The Awards will remain on ABC TV for the next ten years.
A concern being that many of the 7,258 Academy voters are not familiar with the nominated films, and desperately playing catch-up before casting their ballots.
The celebrated Awards were launched on May 16, 1929 at the Hollywood Roosevelt, where tickets were $5, with the event lasting 15 minutes.
The first radio broadcast commenced in 1930, televised later for the first time in 1953.
The Awards are now seen live in more than 200 countries, also available streamed live.
Since the inception, 3,048 awards have been acknowledged.
Ultimately, the ceremony was scheduled for Sunday (rather than Saturday) for more viewers.
Speeches must not last more than 45 seconds from winners who are presented with their coveted award.
The gold-plated statuette weighs 8.5 pounds, and may be sold only to the Academy for one dollar.
In 1939 when Margaret Herrick, the Academy librarian saw it, she sighed, “Why, it looks like my Uncle Oscar.”
It was columnist Sidney Skolsky who mentioned it in print, and the Oscar name became popular and is now legend.
What with the Grammy Awards delivering less than 24 percent of it past audience, and the Super Bowl ratings the lowest in seven years, how will the Oscars fare, with this year’s crop of unfamiliar films.
Smart folks believe the audiences are turned off by the performers spouting their confusing political agendas.
“I do not want to hear Meryl Streep and other participants mouthing off about the White House and Capitol Hill,” confesses a prominent Beverly Hills realtor. “I want to be entertained by the beautiful people and enjoy the Cleavage City fashions.”
A voice amongst many!
During his cross-country comedy club tours, Red Buttons kidded in his act that “Strange things are happening,” which became a tagline that he used time and again. And now, years later, who knows where the Oscarcast ratings will land?