The risque host who'll have Oscar stars quivering: Will Family Guy genius Seth MacFarlane's near-the-knuckle wit be too much for Hollywood's big night?

When he takes to the stage on Sunday to host the 85th Academy Awards ceremony, comedian Seth MacFarlane will be well aware that the billion viewers worldwide probably know his voice better than his face... even though the voice they’re familiar with is hardly ever his own.
As the creator of the Emmy Award-winning animated sitcom Family Guy, MacFarlane is the voice behind many of its eclectic characters. But this weekend will  be the first time many viewers will see as well as hear him.
In presenting terms, it’s the very definition of jumping in at the deep end, but if anyone can inject some much-needed pep into the Oscars, it could well be the laid-back yet quietly brilliant MacFarlane.

Risky choice: Seth MacFarlane, the man behind cult cartoon Family Guy, will be hosting the 85th Academy Awards this Sunday

At 39, he is very much Hollywood’s current golden boy. Family Guy, which he created almost 20 years ago, has grown into a £1.5 billion franchise, while last year’s Ted — his first foray into film directing which starred a potty-mouthed teddy bear — has taken more than £300 million at the box office.
He is also co-creator of animated series such as American Dad! and The Cleveland Show, making MacFarlane, estimated to earn more than £20 million a year, the highest-paid man in TV.

 

Producers have long been on a quest to bring the Oscars to a younger audience, and in MacFarlane feel they finally have the right man.
But he is cautious. ‘I know if my humour is too soft, I’m going to disappoint a lot of people, but I can’t afford to be too hard, either,’ he says.
It’s a juggling act he has been perfecting his entire career. Family Guy is a dizzying mix of the swanky juxtaposed with the smutty, and though the show has been banned in many countries it remains his most popular creation.

Suprised, shocked and sober: Seth MacFarlane, a controversial choice, said he thinks hosting the Oscars 'sounds like the most fun that any one person could have sober'

Host with the most: Seth MacFarlane steps in to replace one of the Oscars statuettes for a promo for this Sunday's 85th Academy Awards

The series features the dysfunctional yet happy Griffin family — Peter Griffin, the doughy and not particularly bright patriarch; his feisty wife Lois; kids Chris, Meg and Stewie (the latter of whom is a matricidal one-year-old who sounds like Rex Harrison) and Brian, Peter’s best friend, who is also the family’s talking dog.
The show has garnered as much opprobrium as praise (Sarah Palin, the Parents Television Council, the Venezuelan government and Canada are among those who have complained). MacFarlane says he is nothing if not an ‘equal opportunities offender’.
But if the Oscars organising committee harboured any fears that their host would be too risky a choice, they were instantly allayed.

Creator: Seth MacFarlane is the man behind Family Guy where he voices a handful of characters, including Peter and Brian Griffin

‘Everybody asks: “Aren’t you scared about hiring Seth to do this?”,’ says Neil Meron, executive producer of the Oscars broadcast.
‘But Seth said: “Look, I respect the Academy, I respect the nominees, I respect the film business. I’m going to be irreverent and fun and push the edges, but I’m going to do something that is of quality.” ’
It’s barely 8am on a shivery morning in the run-up to the Oscars ceremony, but MacFarlane, in a crisp grey suit and blue shirt, still manages to exude a boyish enthusiasm at having been chosen to front the show.
‘In all honesty I was shocked and surprised,’ he admits. ‘I did not see that coming and I was thrilled that I would even be considered. I mean, it sounded like the most fun that any one person could have sober.’
In Family Guy, MacFarlane provides the voices of Peter, Brian and Stewie, and his voice most closely resembles that of erudite Brian — a baritone which one senses has been warmed by the occasional cocktail.
He’s handsome, in the most clean-cut and toothsome way (‘If you don’t know who I am,’ he said while announcing the nominees last month, ‘pretend I’m Donny Osmond’) and despite his shows being replete with pop culture references, he has an old school charisma. ‘He has great charm,’ agrees Meron, ‘and he embodies a kind of post-Millennium host in that tradition of Johnny Carson, Bob Hope and Billy Crystal.’
Making the show current has proved a major stumbling block. Comedian Chris Rock’s turn in 2005 didn’t go down well with some of the Academy’s older members (he referred to awards shows as ‘idiotic’), while the 2011 presenting duo of a hyperactive Anne Hathaway and a semi-comatose James Franco is one best consigned to the darkest recesses of memory.
MacFarlane’s shows  are frequently classic in tone and edgy in content. ‘And that’s the sort of humour I want to bring to the Oscars’, he says.