A bailout plan for Oscar’s big night

It’s time for the annual Oscar telecast hand-wringing. Every year the show’s ratings slip a little lower and every year members of the entertainment media offer their unsolicited and perpetually unheeded advice on how to fix the show. The criticism is endless and insanely contradictory: The show is too long, it’s too boring, the dance numbers are painful, please make the singing stop.

There are too many awards (Sound editing and sound effects? Really?), there are too few awards (Can we please give comedy its own category?), the films that are nominated in the big categories are too small, too precious, too depressing. Americans know too much about movie stars, they don’t care enough about movie stars, there are no more movie stars, there are too many award shows, and perhaps most important, why don’t the “Harry Potter” films ever seem to win anything?

On and on it goes, this cycle of red-carpet psychoanalysis. The various Oscar producers do what they can -- two years ago Laura Ziskin wept and gnashed her teeth to get winners to give speeches that were not laundry lists of agents and studio execs (thanks for trying, Laura). The indefatigable Gilbert Cates always tried to include popular movies, and pop culture in general, in the show -- last year, he had Miley Cyrus present, for heaven’s sake. For the telecast Feb. 22, the academy has brought in Laurence Mark and Bill Condon as producer and executive producer, respectively. Neither has worked on the Oscars before, but they do know from spectacle -- “Dreamgirls” was a big hit.

Yet no one seems willing to address the basic nature of the problem: The Oscars is a television show. It’s a tribute to movies, but it’s a television show. And more than that, it’s a live television show. Which means it should be left to the professionals. The television professionals.

Certainly this is the case backstage where the Oscar production team is, to a person, the best in the business. The live-television business. So why don’t we see that reflected on stage? There is name talent in this world, in this very town, who can deliver on live television. But for the most part, they are not (are you listening, Messrs. Mark and Condon?) movie stars.

Movie stars have a tendency to freeze on live TV, to go flat or talk too fast or suspiciously slur their words. They cannot, it would seem, tell a simple joke or engage in anything that even looks like banter.

Completely understandable -- most movie actors aren’t used to performing live in front of a huge audience. In fact, after spending years reporting from backstage at the Oscars, the only person I saw who looked truly comfortable before taking the stage to present an award was former Vice President Al Gore. Part of that was a phoenix-like toughness -- after the disaster of the 2000 election, how bad could an Oscar speech get? -- but part of it was just practice.

The academy understands this, sort of. Every year, they anoint some poor comedian to host the Oscars under the (correct) assumption that comedians have experience playing in front of big audiences, comedians can vamp if necessary, improvise if there’s an opportunity. Comedians, with varying degrees of success, can go live.

But then they give this host, who is only human after all, three to four hours to fill with the worst cast in the history of the world -- a bunch of movie stars. Overdressed and anxious movie stars. Many of who barely have time to schedule a brief “run through” rehearsal the day before the show.

It’s a miracle the show runs at all.

Obviously, you can’t take movie stars completely out of the Oscar equation, but if we’re serious about fixing this show, let’s bring in the experts. To at least help. Yes, of course, the show needs a host, but why expect him or her to do it alone? Would “Seinfeld” have been a hit without Elaine, George and Kramer? What you need is an Oscar posse. A few suggestions:

1 Tina Fey. If you need a main host, she’s your gal. She’s one of the hottest entertainment stars working right how; she had a movie out this year, so she actually qualifies as a movie star; but she also knows the power, and vagaries, of television. And after demolishing the McCain-Palin candidacy, she should view the Oscars as a walk in the park. (But no dancing, Tina. Seriously. We saw the Vanity Fair promo video. No dancing.)

2 Ricky Gervais. He single-handedly saved the Emmy telecast; he’s said he’ll do it if Steve Carell, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert help; he has that nice, dry English delivery and insider/outsider viewpoint; and he starred in his first feature film, “Ghost Town,” this year, which did “meh” enough to be good for some jokes. If the accent’s a problem, ABC can run subtitles.

3 Steve Carell, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Jon knows the ropes, but he was never a huge hit, so maybe he and Tina can co-host, you know, like Sonny and Cher. Carell, another TV/movie star, helped Gervais resuscitate the Emmys, has the straightest face in the business and looks great in a tux. Colbert, well, anyone who can get Willie Nelson to bring pot to the Baby Jesus and put Elvis Costello in a nutcracker suit as he did on his Christmas special deserves a shot at the Oscars.

4 Robert Downey Jr. Not all movie stars are dead weight when they go live. Downey is King of the Mountain right now, he’s capable of speaking in full (and hilarious) paragraphs and his brain neither stops nor slows. Bring him up there with Russell Crowe, whom he parodied in “Tropic Thunder” -- who wouldn’t tune in for that?

5 Jack Black. “Tropic Thunder,” “Kung Fu Panda” -- the guy has the best silhouette since Hitchcock, the best eyebrows since Nicholson. And, not that this matters in the least, the young people love him.

6 The rest of the “Tropic Thunder” guys. Here’s a big movie skewering Hollywood, full of comedians. But use them only if they are totally into it, otherwise it will totally wreck the show. Bonus points, though, if you can get Tom Cruise to do the fat-suit dance.

7 Eddie Izzard. Rumor has it he wants to make a movie based on the (canceled) TV show “The Riches.” What better way to curry favor, Eddie, than by saving the Oscars? Though, could you throw on some eyeliner? I know you don’t want to be typecast, but I think you could have saved “The Riches” if you had made Wayne one of your signature action transvestites.

8 David Letterman. Now wait, wait, I know, I was there, I remember, but Letterman . . . well, the road to the White House did indeed go through him. I’m not saying he should host -- certainly not -- but wouldn’t it be nice to just see him back on that stage?

9 Chris Rock. The only member of the Hollywood firmament to not only host the Oscars but also play a first African-American president, Rock seems like a natural. He got a lukewarm reception as host but he got the problem with the Oscars better than any host in history -- “White Chicks” did do better box office than most of the nominees. In fact, why not bring back . . .

10 All the former hosts. In the plot to save Oscar, the biggest question will be: Who gets to wear the sexy “Valkyrie-esque” eye patch? (My money is on Whoopi.)

OK, so you get the point. It’s not so much thinking outside the box as it is bringing more people into the box.

Of course, jump-starting the Oscars won’t be easy. This year’s crop of possible nominees seems to include more popular films than in recent years, which is promising, but thus far no ratings-gold-standard like “Titanic” has emerged (though the reunion of “Titanic” lovers Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet in “Revolutionary Road” may help).

Forget about axing the “boring” awards. You know what? It’s an award show, and it’s nice to see noncelebrities cry and thank their spouses. Just make sure what happens in between is entertaining. Have people talk about the industry the way they actually do -- fondly but occasionally irreverently, with wonderful examples of what it’s like to actually make a movie. That’s what people want to know, that’s what people want to see.

The Oscars is the toughest show on television because there are so many moving parts, because the audience plays such a big role, because it has to walk a line between glamour and solemnity. But it should still be fun. Americans love their movie stars just as much as we love what they do. But everyone has specific talents. If we’re going to televise the Oscars and judge it so harshly by its ratings, then for the love of Nielsen bring in the experts.

Then we’ll see how it goes and get back to you.

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mary.mcnamara@latimes.com.