Masada said he especially enjoyed laughing at Hope's famous joke, in a clip introduced by Crystal Sunday, about the Oscars, "or, as they're known at my house, Passover." So did film historian Leonard Maltin, who calls it "one of the greatest jokes ever written."

But you don't have to be a comic to make a great host, or deliver a classic quip. Actor David Niven will long be remembered for his stellar response to the streaker who sped by him in 1974: "Isn't it fascinating to think," Niven noted drily, "that probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and showing his shortcomings?"

Likewise, actor Alec Baldwin was a hit when he hosted alongside Steve Martin last year, as he was in Sunday's opening montage. As Franco and Hathaway tried to figure out whose dream they had invaded, "Inception"-like, Baldwin assured them it wasn't his. "If this were my dream," he said, "I'd be hosting the Oscars again." (From Baldwin's dream to producers' ears?)

You can also be a popular comic and bomb at the Oscars — David Letterman has made a running joke about the bad reviews he got for his one Oscar gig.

The comic best known for his yeoman Oscar duties was Hope, who hosted the first of his 18 shows (not consecutive) in 1940, and the first televised show in 1953. Others included Johnny Carson, of course, Whoopi Goldberg, Jon Stewart, Chris Rock, and Ellen DeGeneres.

"Standup comedians do know how to handle a room," said Jonathan Kuntz, a professor of film and Hollywood history at the University of California, Los Angeles. "They know how to handle all kinds of situations. They seem so much more confident."

This year's hosts, according to Kuntz, were not terrible and not great — just OK. "They did look like they were reciting lines," he said. "They didn't provide any classic moments."

But maybe that's a little much to ask. After all, the Oscars are a key marketing vehicle for Hollywood. "And Hollywood's core audience is younger people," Kuntz says. So the hosts were chosen to appeal to that demographic.

It's not clear yet how they fared — an estimated 37.6 million viewers watched this year, down nearly 10 percent from 2010 (but up from 2008 and 2009). Preliminary Nielsen ratings said that numbers in the 18-to-49-year-old demographic were down only 2 percent

Kuntz says it's not as easy as assuming that a comic would be better. With all the comics who have hosted, he says, the next great host has not been found.

"They haven't found a Bob Hope or a Billy Crystal for the 21st century yet," he says. "You just never know until they try it. You just have to throw them out there and see what happens."