It’s a headscratcher: Lame-duck film academy chief Tom Sherak reportedly reached out in an attempt to nab NBC talkshow host Jimmy Fallon to emcee the ABC-broadcast Academy Awards. He also was said to have tried to get “Saturday Night Live’s” Lorne Michaels to produce. It’s not so much that the fur is still flying, it’s more a matter of what sort of odd fallout this whole bizarre episode might have behind the scenes.

Observes Deadline’s Nikki Finke, “Tom Sherak now will go down in Oscars history as giving new definition to the word chutzpah. The outgoing president of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences tried to pull a fast one on the incoming president Hawk Koch, who was just voted in Tuesday night. Choosing the producer and host of the Oscars is probably the most important job of the AMPAS president. Yet Sherak, despite knowing he himself was a lame duck, nevertheless broke protocol and tried to hire the 85th Academy Awards hosts for the February 24th, 2013, telecast which should be Koch’s responsibility.”

Says Variety’s Jon Weisman, “It’s not that the idea of Jimmy Fallon hosting the Oscars isn’t an inspired one. But with the level of competitiveness among the smallscreen networks today, it would nevertheless be remarkable for the Academy to compel ABC to put an NBC star front and center on its primetime extravaganza.”

And notes the L.A. Times’ Joe Flint, “There is both a Facebook page and a Twitter page dedicated to promoting the idea of NBC late-night star Jimmy Fallon as an Oscar host. But it’s hard to imagine ABC letting this happen without a fight. That’s because ABC has its own late night host in Jimmy Kimmel, who competes with Fallon. Kimmel is hosting the Emmy Awards on ABC this year and thus wouldn’t be able to do the Oscars anyway, but that doesn’t mean the network wants his chief rival to get the gig.”

Is it all true? If so, why and why now? Stay tuned.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-fallon-20120802,0,6151303.story

http://www.deadline.com/2012/08/no-oscars-host-or-producer-yet-outgoing-academy-president-tried-and-failed-to-hire-jimmy-fallon-lorne-michaels/

http://weblogs.variety.com/thevote/2012/08/would-the-academy-force-jimmy-fallon-on-abc.html