Great scoop from FishbowlLA: Jon Stewart will be hosting the Oscars! The news was broken by LATimes awards blog "The Envelope" (and yet to be confirmed by the Academy, but FBLA says that "the LAT never makes mistakes." Nice going, Dean Baquet!). Apparently Chris Rock wasn't invited back, Billy Crystal said no (too bad, I love those opening montages - I imagine he might have had fun with "Brokeback Mountain"), and, according to The Envelope, vague negotiations with Whoopi Goldberg and Steve Martin never came to fruition (obviously).

I would imagine that Jon will be taking his NYC-based writers with him...I can't quite see him suffering the usual tacky Oscar patter (please let them also be responsible for the presenter stuff, too, even the luckless sap who's forced to present with a cartoon character). Hope he brings Rob, Sam, Ed and the gang, too. Wonder if he'll be as nice to his celebrity movie audience as he was to his celebrity media panel?

[LATimes via FBLA]