Tonight is the 85th Academy Awards. The host for the Oscars is Seth MacFarlane, known in the television world as the creator of “Family Guy,” “American Dad!” and “The Cleveland Show.” In the film world, he’s known as that guy who makes fun of them on TV and the writer/director of Ted. Tonight, MacFarlane pulls double duty: he is nominated for Best Original Song (“Everybody Needs a Best Friend“) and is tasked with having tell jokes to a room full of people about that room full of people. No easy task.

Hopefully, Seth included the WWF Slammys as part of his research, the only audience that is possibly more hostile than the Oscars. The 1996 Slammys kicked off with Host Todd “WPLJ” Pettengill performing a medley of songs about the WWF Superstars set to popular songs for 5 and a half minutes.

WWF Slammy Awards 1996 Part 1 by AaruBui

See? just like the Oscars except that all the nominees at the Slammys could very easily harm Pettengill. The stage even has ring ropes! Using that medley, Todd pulls from the the Billy Crystal Playbook for hosting the Oscars. But even Billy isn’t brave (foolish?) enough to apply his method to the antics of the squared circle and walk away unscathed. Only Pettengill can re-work classic television themes like The Addams Family or The Brady Bunch into songs about Goldust and Bret Hart respectively. Only the Toddster can walk the fine line of taking Toni Basil’s “Mickey” and making it about the Ultimate Warrior while getting a dig in about Announcer / Boss, Vince McMahon.

Good luck tonight, Seth. When in doubt, Pettengill it out.