Sacha Baron Cohen Threatens to Make Oscar Ceremony Interesting; Academy Balks

At this rate, this Sunday's Oscar telecast will be one of the lower-rated in years.

Wonderful as The Artist may be (It is), nobody wants to spend 5 hours watching it win every award imaginable while all the celebrity presenters yuck it up about how awesome they are and kiss each other's asses. Hell, this is the first time in, well ever, that even I am seriously contemplating not watching myself. If I do, it will be back and forth when The Walking Dead comes on and that one takes priority. Sorry, Oscar!

But there has to be some kind of controversy. How else can the ceremony get ink without anyone yawning? Sacha Baron Cohen would like to spice things up a bit by walking the Red Carpet, as his character from The Dictator Admiral General Alladeen. He must suspect a snooze-fest in the making too, and hey, this also gives him a chance to plug his forthcoming, and so far unfunny looking, comedy while doing something legitimately unpredictable and thus interesting for us television viewers. A win-win, right? Sure, but the Academy hates that idea. God forbid they make fun of themselves.

And they seriously wonder every year why more and more people (Many of those the Academy makes fun of during the telecast about being stupid red-staters) tune out?