So I guess no one at the Academy got the memo that no one really liked the way the Oscars were put on back in February (I was mostly fine with them, mind you), and so they’re bringing Craig Zadan and Neil Meron back for more. This last year featured high profile tributes to Zadan/Meron-produced musicals and specifically two big moments for the (granted, 10 years old at the time) “Chicago.” What will we get in 2014? A tribute to television’s “Smash?”

Says Academy president Hawk Koch via press release, “Craig and Neil have the overwhelming support of the Academy”s Governors to produce the Oscars again in 2014. In order to establish continuity with this year”s enormously successful show, we felt it was important to give these consummate professionals the green light now to begin creating another great evening.”

Enormously successful? Yeah, ratings were up. But…

Again, I was fine with the Oscars this year. Everyone belly-ached the toilet humor as if hiring Seth MacFarlane signaled something more than that. But I’ve talked to an overwhelming amount of people who were in the room — running the gamut from journalists to filmmakers to celebrities — who were grossed out by it. So I don’t know if I’d be pimping “continuity,” but hey, it’s their show.

Quoting again from the release:

“The February 2013 Oscars hosted by Seth MacFarlane, drew an average audience of 40.3 million total viewers and delivered a 13.0 rating among adults 18-49. The show was TV”s most-watched entertainment telecast in the last 3 years, and grew its overall audience for the 2nd straight year (+3%), surging 11% in adults 18-49 (13.0 rating vs. 11.7 rating) to its best numbers since 2010. In addition, the show scored gains year-to-year with adults 18-34 (+20% – 11.3 rating vs. 9.4 rating), hitting its highest number in 6 years – since 2007. Overall, it was the Oscars second-most-watched telecast since 2005.”

Was that the show that did that, though? Or was it, I don’t know, a slew of movies that did extraordinarily well at the box office being in the mix?

The 86th annual Academy Awards are set for Sunday, March 2, 2014.