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.'

A few weeks ago, I shared with you my six reasons the Oscars will probably stink this year. Now I have another reason to add to the list. Peter Gabriel has dropped out of the broadcast in protest. Gabriel, who collaborated with Thomas Newman on the song "Down To Earth" from WALL-E, had been slated to perform the song during the February 22 airing on ABC. However, when the producers told Gabriel that his performance had be compressed to 65 seconds and fit into a medley of all the best song nominations, Peter opted out.

If you haven't yet tried Stephen Colbert's AmeriCone Dream ice cream from Ben and Jerry's, you should. It is the most "just okay" ice cream you'll ever taste. Your tastebuds will be bombarded with a cavalcade of average, middle-of-the-road flavor.

Okay, so AmeriCone Dream never did much for me. I'm more of a Phish Food man, what can you do? However, on July 7, Colbert will be doing something Phish has never done: he'll throw the first pitch at a RiverDogs baseball game in Charleston, South Carolina (his hometown). He won't be throwing a ball, however, he'll be throwing a pint of AmeriCone Dream. I'd like to see the entire game played with a pint of ice cream, but that probably won't happen. Jerry Greenfield, the "Jerry" in "Ben and Jerry's" will catch the pint. Let's hope he does, because I'm pretty sure getting conked in the head by a pint of frozen ice cream is kind of painful, especially if one of those waffle cone shards get wedged in your eye.

In addition to tossing his ice cream, Colbert will also sit in on the radio broadcast during the game.

[via CC Insider]

The Cone Zone is fulfilling his Manifest Destiny and heading West for a week of shows. Starting April 30th, Late Night with Conan O'Brien will broadcast five nights of shows from San Francisco's Orpheum Theatre. Judging from Conan's past outings to Chicago and Toronto, it should be a great week for late night television. Of course, there was that Toronto slip-up in which Triumph insulted the national pride of our great neighbor to the North. (What did they expect? He's an "insult comic dog.")

While these week-long tapings are fun for viewers, I'm partial to Conan's travels to truly foreign shores - Conan's adventures in Finland, his staffer's remote from a call center in India, etc. After San Francisco, I think it's time for another overseas outing. I'm thinking Thailand, Poland or another trip to Ireland. Or, maybe, that's my desired travel itinerary. Regardless, taking the late night host out of his element every now and again is never a bad idea.

Viewers can request tickets for the San Francisco tapings at Conan's website.

I recall Carl Sagan on the old Cosmos show explaining the gold plaque the was placed on the Pioneer 10 spacecraft to introduce us to any aliens that happened to pick it up, unlikely as that might be.

Now, in a week when we've got Neil Armstrong's words straight, news comes that European television channel Arte, which broadcasts in French and German, is producing a program to beam directly into space 45 light years away, to a point near the Big Dipper. The programs sort of a multimedia version of the plaque: it'll feature a nude man and woman as presenters, who will talk about daily human life. Examples of music and art, along with messages from scientists in many disciplines will also be included. The event is conceived by the French Centre National D'etudes Spatiales (CNES). The Irish Times has a really snarky article about it.

Because of the distance, if the broadcast is seen, any show that aliens might want to put on for us won't be available here for at least ninety years. Probably longer, allowing for production time.

[via Slashdot]