Oscar Host Billy Crystal Plans to Mock GOP 'Idiots' in Telecast? (Updated)

February 24th, 2012 12:01 PM

Actor Billy Crystal returns to his Oscar hosting duties this Sunday night and not surprisingly he plans on continuing the liberal Hollywood tradition of mocking Republicans during the show. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly the star of My Giant made clear his intentions to have fun at the Republican candidates' expense as he snarked: "How funny are these idiots?"

The following is the relevant portion of the online edition of the Entertainment Weekly article dated February 22, 2012:

"And he reveals that, while he won't make any jokes in the show about the controversial 'rehearsal's for fags' remark that led Oscar producer Brett Ratner to step down in November ('Rehearsals are for gags,' he says, deadpan), he does intend to use this year's heated presidential campaign as fodder for comedy: 'How funny are these idiots?' he says. 'There will be something that will filter into it.'"

Full EW story here.

EDITOR'S NOTE: MRC's Scott Whitlock reports the print version (not available online) shows the actual, longer Crystal answer shows a more reasonable and sensitive answer. What's wrong with the PopWatch blog that they can't run this reasonable answer online? 

EW: There's obviously a heated presidential campaign going on this year. Will that work its way into the show?

Crystal: Well, how funny are these idiots? There will be something that will filter into it. But you've got a big part of the country that likes one of these guys, and you don't want to be offensive. This is a pretty passionate year for [politics]- and it's been a hard couple of years for the audience. You don't want them to go, "Oh, here's a smart-ass from Hollywood making fun of us."