Every year, the folks behind the Oscar telecast promise a show that's livelier, funnier, hipper, shorter ... and yet they never deliver. Here are five things we'd do to fix the show:

1. Inject some girl power: Hire Tina Fey and Amy Poehler as hosts. They were a hilarious hit at the Golden Globes and play so well together.

2. Jazz up those speeches: Hollywood has assistants for everything. It's time to assign a speech writer to each award nominee so we can avoid those long, boring laundry lists of names.

3. Dump some categories: Let the behind-the-scenes techie nerds have their own night to themselves. Our rule: If you've never appeared on screen, we don't want you on ours.

4. Get back to five

5. Always have Jack Nicholson in the front row: This is a must. No exceptions. Even if the Lakers are playing across town.

Read Chuck Barney's TV blog at http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/category/tv and follow him at http://twitter.com/chuckbarney.