Crystal will be back to host Oscars

Billy Crystal says he is hosting the Academy Awards.

The 63-year-old comedian and Oscar-hosting veteran said Thursday on Twitter that he is "doing the Oscars so the young woman in the pharmacy will stop asking my name when I pick up my prescriptions."

Academy officials confirmed the appointment.

Crystal last hosted the show in 2004.

This will be his ninth stint as host and follows a groundswell of sentiment for his return following a guest appearance on the Oscar show this past February for which he received a standing ovation.

Eddie Murphy had been chosen to host the Feb. 26, 2012, show, but pulled out Wednesday following the departure of producer and friend Brett Ratner over an anti-gay slur. He used a pejorative term for gay men in a question-and-answer session at a screening of his action-comedy Tower Heist.  

Hosting the four-hour marathon is considered a thankless task, as Oscars hosts often come in for heavy criticisms, and the job adds little to a show-biz resumé.

It had been hoped that Murphy's comedic talents would help perk up Oscars ratings, which have suffered in recent years.

On Wednesday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said it had hired veteran producer Brian Grazer to work on next year’s Oscars ceremony in place of Ratner.

Grazer, who won an Oscar for A Beautiful Mind, will join co-producer Don Mischer, who worked on the 2011 Oscars and was named to the job alongside Ratner in August, academy president Tom Sherak said.

Grazer, 60, is also producer of Tower Heist, which he worked on with both Ratner and Murphy. He is known for his attention to detail in films such as Frost/Nixon and Apollo 13, with frequent collaborator Ron Howard. He was also nominated for a screenwriting Oscar for the 1985 comedy Splash.