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We Can't Have Nice Things

The Oscars Will Now Deprive Us of a Musical Number by the Muppets (and the Birds from Rio)

by Jamie Frevele | 1:58 pm, February 7th, 2012


After the controversial revelation that only two songs were nominated for the Best Original Song award at the Oscars, despite plenty of other good songs being perfectly eligible for a nod, Deadline is now reporting that neither of the two nominated songs — “Man or Muppet” from The Muppets and “Real in Rio” from Rio — will be performed during the telecast. So, if you were planning on tuning in for the sole purpose of seeing a Muppets musical number, you can go ahead and make other plans. We’d like to thank the Academy for making their awards show even more boring than it was going to be.

It was bad enough that for some weird reason, perhaps the weird voting system used to vote on songs to nominate, the Academy failed to recognize more than two songs this year. It’s not as if there were no other songs to nominate — plenty of talented artists had original songs this year, including Elton John (had a song in Gnomeo and Juliet), Madonna (had a song in the movie she directed, W.E.), and most notably, Mary J. Blige, whose song for The Help didn’t make the cut despite multiple nominations for the movie itself.

But now, making yet another change to their telecast of the awards — something they feel they need to do every single year, it seems — the only two nominated songs will not be performed. Apparently, there were concerns about the length of the show, which always goes long (usually over three hours). And both studios behind the nominated songs — Disney and Fox — protested the decision to cut, but were shut down.

However, this might not be a done deal. Reports Deadline:

“The show is not locked yet. Decisions about this and other things continue to be evaluated by the team trying to produce the most entertaining 3 hours possible,” one authoritative source just emailed us. “Someone ‘leaking’ this possibility to you is just another way for people to try and influence the creative direction of the show. And there have been Oscar shows that did not have the nom songs performed.”

But that probably won’t change what we’ve already heard. Even though a Muppets musical number would have been the most fun and interesting part of the show. And we’re not the only ones who feel this way:

”It seems like a huge missed opportunity to me, and we certainly tried,” one song insider just told us. Said another song insider: “It doesn’t make sense. They could have so much fun with Muppets and Rio staging.”

I guess there will be pretty shiny things and people to look at and then not remember at all the next day.

(via Deadline)

Previously in Oscars

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  • Allison Cole

    Now, the ONLY thing keeping me watching this show, which I usually am excited about, is Billy Crystal. Also, does anyone know who they’ll be giving the honorary Oscar to this year? Or if there’ll even be one? 

  • Anonymous

    My best bet is the reason they aren’t doing a live muppet number is the same reason they wouldn’t consider the Muppets hosting the Oscars – too many things that could go wrong.

    But as you say, the Internet enrages easily, and we might see enough populist pressure to cause a change in mind.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=502621339 Jasmine Zerbe-Moore

    Yeah, having the Muppets perform is a huge undertaking, but their song isn’t a company number.  They really only need Walter…maybe the puppet that’s Seigle’s muppet side, but that’s not even necessary.

  • Adam Whitley

    anyone arguing for less muppet musical numbers int he world is a villain

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  • http://twitter.com/antiavenger Mike Perry

    One thing I never understood is why they just don’t schedule it for 4 hours, book 3 hours of show (plus overtime since it always runs long) and have a post-show for whatever extra time there is on the network airing the telecast… It would mean we’d get Muppet singing this year for sure!

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