The lead up to last year’s Oscar ceremony wasn’t an easy one for The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It started with their announcement that director Brett Ratner would be producing the show, with his Tower Heist star Eddie Murphy hosting. While most were interested enough in how Murphy would do in the hosting role, Ratner himself has built up a lot of hatred with the online press so there was much grumbling about how stupid his version of an awards show would look, and much celebrating when some off color comments got him fired from the job, leading to Murphy stepping down as host. The celebration didn’t last long, however, as the Academy ignored online campaigns to install Jim Henson’s felty creations, The Muppets, as hosts, and instead went with a tired old choice who we’ve all seen head the show a million times before in Billy Crystal. The criticisms that the Academy and the Oscars were old, out of touch, and unable to let go of past success poured in, and questions of how much longer the show would remain relevant were raised. Well, this year the Academy seems to have taken some of those criticisms to heart, because they’ve not only hired a fresh face to host the awards, they’ve hired the guy who directed probably the best-loved comedy of the summer, Ted, and is most famous for creating one of the raunchiest shows on television, Family Guy. In a press release sent out today,