MY PLAN TO SAVE THE ACADEMY AWARDS

MY PLAN TO SAVE THE ACADEMY AWARDS

I’m so old I remember when the Miss America Contest, in the autumn and the Academy Awards, in March, were the only award shows on television.

Everyone, but everyone, tuned into both shows.

The Miss America Contest was a hoot.

There was Bert Parks, who must have been snorting a ton of blow because he was jumping all over the place, singing/screaming “Here She Comes, Miss America.” The show itself was a blast. There’s nothing like sitting there listening to 50 idiots (albeit beautiful idiots) giving you their plan for world peace. Then there was the winner who, upon hearing she was the most beautiful girl in the world, started to cry until her eyes were red, her nose was running, and her face was so clinched she looked like the ugliest girl in the world.

Did you watch the show this year? Of course you didn’t. It’s dead. Passé.

This is exactly what the Academy Awards are facing now. The ratings are sagging because there are too many award shows out there all year long. And, since I am a kind, sweet person, I’ve decided to give some advice to the Academy on how to stay up-to-date.

Okay guys, desperate times call for desperate measures.

First of all, change your format. I say you merge the Academy Awards show with one of those disgusting -- but top rated -- survival shows.

 Instead of Emma Stone going on stage to pick up her award for “Bugonia”and making some boring speech, you announce that she’s the winner for Best Actress. But to make it official, she has to come up and fish her Academy Award statue out of a three-foot bucket filled with snakes. If she refuses, the award goes to Kate Hudson for “Song Song Blue,” who was runner up, providing she’s willing to put her arm in a bucket of snakes. It’s Survival Oscars.

Call me weird, but I do want to know if Timothee Chalamet is willing to eat a cooked dead rat in order to get his award for Best Actor. Oherwise it will go to Leonardo DiCaprio, providing he digs in.

Let’s see if Sean Penn is willing to be lowered into the dreaded cockroach and spider pit in order to claim his award as Best Supporting Actor.

So now what do we do about those dreadful speeches that hold up the show?

I say the academy has every contender sign a waiver stating that they are completely aware and in agreement that there is a booth located on the ceiling of the theatre with a marksman sniper who is authorized to shoot anyone who speaks for over a minute.

To really speed things up there will be no watch or clock in the building except in the sniper’s booth. The kicker? Announce in advance that the marksman is Clint Eastwood who is now a shaky 95-year-old. And, instead of giving him the distinguished old fart award, like they usually do every year at the award shows, they are rewarding Eastwood by allowing him to play God. He can use his own Republican discretion to pull the trigger should any hint of politics come into a thank you speech.

Also, as a bonus, Eastwood is allowed to shoot Mark Ruffalo before Ruffalo even opens his mouth

Now we all know about the talk that was generated many years ago when Madonna stuck her by now completely jaded (and I might add exhausted) tongue down Britney Spears throat. I say make it mandatory that every man and woman, upon coming on stage, must stick his or her tongue down the throat of the Mistress Of Ceremonies. Here’s the kicker. My choice for the Mistress of Ceremonies? Whoopi Goldberg.

Now let’s talk about a dress code. For years, people watched the award show as sort of a celebrity fashion show. But year after year the dresses have gotten flimsier and flimsier. Most of the women at this year’s award show came dressed in a couple of feathers and some gauze. The excitement of the skimpy clothes worn by the stars has diminished. Most of them have been nude in their movies so why do they have to cover up anything for some faint hearted ABC executives?

Let’s put an end to this hypocrisy. I say everyone who is eligible to pick up an Oscar must be nude. Yes, it is finally time for a nude Academy Awards show. Let HBO and Netflix fight with their checkbooks for the rights to televise this history-making extravaganza. Finally, as the piece de resistance, I have a sure-fire way to bring the ratings to a new high.

The answer is gambling!

Gambling, I say will allow simultaneous Internet computer betting on who the winners will be during the Academy Awards show. People will bet millions on their favorite star -- their favorite movie, their favorite director. Show the odds board on a split screen with the awards. Open betting three days before the show. Tell me, who wouldn’t put a hundred bucks on Margot Robbie’s pretty nose.

Now let’s talk about the winner of the Documentary category.

And we all know who the winner will be. But first the presenters come on stage.

OhMyGod It’s stripper Stormy Daniels, nude as usual, and the one and only Donald Trump. Both Trump and Stormy pretend they have never seen each other before.

Yes, he’s nude and flabby and quite disgusting. They both tongue kiss Whoopi, who proceeds to throw up.

Then they announce the winner. Of course it’s, Melania Trump for a documentary no one reading this will ever see. Melania is nude and quite beautiful, and she excepts her Oscar statue.

The crowd cheers and of course Trump bows to take the applause that he thinks is for him. And that’s when, in front of millions of helpless people, Melania stares at the naked flabby behind of our 47th President and she takes the statue, and with the strength that comes from the anger of being married to a monster for 21 years. Melania shoves the statue up…up...

up…Oh no what’s happening to me ?

I can’t go on like this. This is my Trump Derangement Syndrome at its worst.

Forget I ever wrote this. Burn this column before it gets into the hands of small children