Forget Conan as Tonys host. How about Christopher Walken? Or that guy from ‘Glee’?
This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.
Rumors of a Conan O’Brien-hosted Tony Awards were running rampant over the weekend, even though they were instantly quashed but the very rumor mongerer who started it.
Our colleague Joe Flint over at the Company Town blog, meanwhile, observed that the idea of Coco might have sounded good on paper, but CBS would be better off touting one of its own -- specifically its late late host Craig Ferguson.
All this got us thinking: Who would be a good host for the Tonys?
Sure, Neil Patrick Harris won us over last year when he did the TV Land Awards, the Tonys, the Emmys and in the years prior, the most special of all those special award shows, The Ovations. So, yeah, yeah, sure, we’d be fine with Harris again. But after seeing him open the Academy Awards this year, we started to fear he may be a wee bit, well, overexposed.
Also welcome, but perhaps also a tad overexposed, is the mighty Hugh Jackman (although in his case, we’d welcome as much exposure as he wants to expose). For his fourth stab at emcee duties, Jackman could invite his ‘’A Steady Rain’ co-star Daniel Craig to share in the spotlight.
Then there’s Broadway guy turned ‘Glee’ star Matthew Morrison: He’s already proven he can light up any piazza. Maybe he could co-host with his ‘Glee’ co-star Lea Michele, another Broadway vet -- although ‘Glee’ funny woman Jane Lynch could make for a more riotous evening.
Want glamor? How about Catherine Zeta-Jones? She’s shown she can sing, dance and command a stage. We’re pretty sure they’d give her the day off from ‘A Little Night Music.’
Of course, at Culture Monster, we like to think out of the box. So our vote goes to...
... Christopher Walken. He has a slew of Broadway credits (remember his turn in ‘James Joyce’s The Dead?’) and is currently leaving audiences in stitches in Martin McDonagh’s ‘A Behanding in Spokane.’ Anyone who has seen Fatboy Slim’s video ‘Weapon of Choice’ knows he can dance. And he’s funny (have you seen the ‘Saturday Night Live’ clips?). Our Twitter pal @adventureginger has already launched a Facebook campaign.
What do you think? Register your vote in our poll, and if we’re missing someone or if you have more to say (we know you do), leave a comment below.
-- Lisa Fung
Follow me on Twitter @lfung
[For the record: Proof that we’re so over Conan as a possible Tonys host: We misspelled his last name in an earlier version of this post.]