By now you will have heard that Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy and the recent smash Ted, is to host next year’s Oscars. He may be the least famous person ever to get the gig. He is certainly the first person from behind the camera to host since John Huston in 1974. But MacFarlane is a talented singer and knows how to rile the establishment.

At least one star is already seething. “I saw him on Saturday Night Live,” said Jack Black. I thought he was serviceable. It might get tiring if he keeps on doing the voices from Family Guy. He might give that a rest.”

Black went on to admit that he had not enjoyed MacFarlane’s snipes at him in a Family Guy episode. “I should say he is going to fuck it up because he made fun of me one time on his show, and it made me really mad,” Black bellowed. “It was basically pigeonholing who

I am as saying that I am just a guy that relies on being really loud.” As if.

Black need not, perhaps, get his knickers in too knotty a twist. The Oscars have a habit of neutering less glossy comics such as Jon Stewart and David Letterman (though the latter was much funnier than contemporaneous reports claimed). MacFarlane is already talking about being “true to what I do but at the same time respectfully adapting the tone for this event”. We don’t like the sound of that “respectfully”.

Read more at irishtimes.com/blogs/screenwriter