Like previous singing and dancing Oscars hosts such as Fred Astaire, Frank Sinatra and Hugh Jackman, MacFarlane is a singer who has released an album of American standards and has performed at venues including Carnegie Hall.

In short, he has a hip-street cred with "Family Guy" and "Ted," and the personality and pizzazz of a circus ringmaster. "What the Oscars have clearly decided to do was hand the show over to someone who knows how to write, who won't bring a political agenda to the table, who's a little bit dangerous but who will stay on topic," said O'Neil.

Anne Hathaway's Oscar tips

"Seth MacFarlane has the potential to be one of the greatest Oscar hosts ever, or one of the worst."

MacFarlane was hired after two years of embarrassing incidents, beginning with the hiring of actors James Franco and Anne Hathaway to host the show in 2011 in an attempt to lure younger viewers. The result was disastrous.

"James Franco looked like he wanted to be anywhere but there, and it was ridiculous how overexcited Anne Hathaway was to be there," said Feinberg.

There was more embarrassment last year when action filmmaker Brett Ratner was hired to produce the Academy Awards. Ratner, in turn, tapped comedian Eddie Murphy to host.

Not long after, Ratner caused an industry firestorm when he used a gay slur while promoting his movie "Tower Heist" and then spoke in detail about his sex life on shock jock Howard Stern's radio show.