bill mechanic

The history of the Academy Awards telecast has been generally a pretty traditional show. You've had historic moments of bad taste like Rob Lowe dancing with Snow White, bizarre musical opening numbers from the likes of Lucie Arnaz and Liza Minnelli -- not together -- and, of course, great highs like most of the Billy Crystal musical medleys of the Best Oscar nominees.

This year if Billy were there, his medley would be about 20 minutes long to include all ten nominated movies! They'd have needed an oxygen tank in the wings to revive him after that.

But here's a wickedly wild idea that might have set the Oscars into to fierce wilderness of 'oh-my-God' TV. The Oscar producers were toying with the idea of having Sacha Baron Cohen host the show. Yep, believe it. Producers Adam Shankman and Bill Mechanic were on NPR's 'Fresh Air' with Teri Gross, and they said when they contemplated shaking up the broadcast, they thought of 'Borat.'

In recent years, the songs nominated at the Oscars have not been particularly memorable or worth the time during the broadcast to waste on music that nobody remembers after walking out of the multiplex. This year, ironically, there is at least one very good song that was going to be an Oscar highlight, assuming the producers convinced Jeff Bridges to sing 'The Weary Kind' from 'Crazy Heart' during the March 7th broadcast. That's not going to happen now.

New Oscar producers Adam Shankman and Bill Mechanic have decided to drop the Best Song performances, according Entertainment Weekly. Instead of singers -- either from the movie or good enough to sing the songs from the movies -- we're going to see a montage of images from the picture with the soundtrack recording.

So Ricky Gervais has signed to host the Golden Globes, which means the pressure is on the Oscars to come up with a host or hosts equally as stellar. Or interesting. Or compelling.

One star who has removed himself from the running is last year's host, Hugh Jackman. He will not return as Oscar host when the show airs on ABC, March 7.

He's currently on Broadway in a play -- with 007 Daniel Craig -- and he "quietly turned down the job" according to sources. It's not because he was a bomb emceeing the proceedings either. He didn't do the "Oprah, Uma, Uma, Oprah" joke nor did he trip on his shoelaces in the opening number. Quite the contrary, in fact. Hugh Jackman was a perfectly fine host.

But he doesn't want to do it in 2010. Maybe he doesn't want to push his luck? Maybe he just doesn't want to work that hard.

Adam Shankman and Bill Mechanic have been named producers of the 82nd Annual Academy Awards, the Wrap is reporting.

Shankman is currently a judge on the Fox reality competition series 'So You Think You Can Dance.' He's also directed a number of films, including 2007's 'Hairspray,' co-starring Nikki Blonsky, John Travolta and Michelle Pfeiffer. Next up for Shankman is the Broadway adaptation of 'Rock of Ages' (for more on that, visit Moviefone).

A former CEO and chairman of Fox Filmed Entertainment, Mechanic now runs Pandeomium Films, which produced the well-received animated film 'Coraline' earlier this year.