The Academy Awards telecast is one of the biggest live events on TV, and for good reason. When it does its job right, the Oscars can be fun, loose, and spontaneous; like it was when Seth MacFarlane hosted in 2013. Of course, the opposite side of the coin is a night full of social media pandering, over-bloated gags, and just a general lack of enjoyable material; much like last year's ceremony entailed. With such recent history looming over his head, Neil Patrick Harris is going to need all the help he can get to make this year's show something legen – help me milk the cow here – dary. Lucky for him, he's got a pro helping him out for one of this year's segments: comedy all-star, Jack Black.
The Academy has officially announced that the Kung Fu Panda himself is going to be in what Oscar producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron describe as, "a very special sequence." Not much else has been revealed about the segment of the broadcast, but it wouldn't at all be surprising if Jack Black was being recruited to sing a song at this year's awards telecast. After all, this isn't the first time Jack Black has found himself on the Oscar stage.
In fact, Black and fellow funny man Will Ferrell have performed together on not one, but two occasions. First, there was the infamous "Get Off The Stage" number the two sung together at the 76th Academy Awards in 2004, which filled in the words to the infamous tune the orchestra starts to make sure acceptance speeches don't last too long.
A couple years later, the comedy duo made a well deserved encore at the 79th Academy Awards in 2007, this time drafting Academy Award nominee and Step Brothers co-star John C. Reilly to help them sing about the pressures of being funny in Hollywood, with no golden idol to show for it.
Hiring Jack Black to perform a "special sequence" is a great idea, as it helps balance out some of the more obvious attempts to sway certain demographics back to the Oscar table. If anything, Black's pretty much proven himself to be a terrific candidate for hosting duties in the future. With Will Ferrell, or even Kyle Gass – the other half of his Tenacious D performance team – co-hosting alongside him, Black could be an unstoppable comedy machine. Which means that we should probably throw Kate Winslet into the hosting mix alongside Black, as she helped him be his most cuddly and lovable in The Holiday.
A good Oscar segment is the perfect show reel to audition for the job of Academy Awards host. After this year, Jack Black will have not one, but three different segments he can use in his favor. Mr. Zadan and Mr. Meron... it's your move now. In the meantime, you can see Black on the big screen in the recent Sundance darling The D Train, presumably at some point this year. He will also be on the big screen as R.L. Stine in the movie adaptation of the Goosebumps book series on October 16th.
