I’ve been watching the Academy Awards since Bob Hope was a baby. Back then, they didn’t have a different host each year: It was always Bob Hope. Then Johnny Carson took over for a while. Now they audition someone new every few years but it’s such a no-win gig, you wonder why anyone wants it. Jon Stewart did an admirable job a few years ago and his movie career still lingers in the toilet. Waiters at trendy L.A. restaurants get more Hollywood job offers. And they don’t even have to wear tuxedos.

The Academy Awards show boasts a long and storied tradition – of train wrecks. Every year, we get an endless parade of presenters who forget to bring their reading glasses, presenters who mangle the simplest names, presenters who are so improbably mismatched that you wonder whether the producer is wearing bowling shoes – “Now, from ‘Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay’ with the star of ‘Frost/Nixon’...” presenters who hurt their causes by flogging them, presenters who stumble over the easiest of cue cards. Considering these hapless podium jockeys are usually actors who have already gotten an Academy Award, you’d think they’d be able to at least act as if they are not reading from a teleprompter. You’d think one of their personal assistants could have remembered to bring the spectacles.