Emmy news, Ryan Seacrest to sing?

By Stone Martindale Sep 6, 2007, 15:52 GMT

05/22/2007 - Ryan Seacrest - - Westwood, CA © David Gabber / Photorazzi

Versatile host and radio star Ryan Seacrest said Wednesday that he will ditch the opening monologue in favor of a singing song at the 59th Primetime Emmy Awards on September 16.

Seacrest said the Emmy telecast, which is set to air live at 8 p.m. ET on Fox, told The Hollywood Reprter and other journalists during phone interview that he will open with a tune that he "may or may not be" part of depending on "how confident I feel on the 16th."

"We're obviously still in the putting-it-together stages, and I'll be back in Los Angeles this weekend to hone in on what we're doing with the entire program, but we are going to open the show with a musical number, and that musical number, as you can well imagine, will be like nothing you've seen in years past," Seacrest told reporters during the conference call.

"I'm going to try and make the show fun . . . and I'm going to try to have a sense of humor about it, and I hope the people watching have a sense of humor, too," he said.

Seacrest noted comedians will dot the Emmys, like Lewis Black, Jon Stewart to Ellen DeGeneres -- to provide laughs, and he also poked fun at himself.

"Some people laugh just by reading the line, 'Ryan Seacrest is hosting the Emmys,'" he joked, noting that the Emmy writers are approaching his script differently than they would for a comedian.

Seacrest is a media multitasker, appearing on several shows and radio all in a tight time frame, and told the journalists he gets up between 4-5 a.m. weekdays and goes to bed around 8:30 p.m.

Regarding the Emmy-nominated song "Dick in a Box," originally performed by Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg on NBC's "Saturday Night Live," Seacrest said Emmy producers are in talks with Timberlake -- whose scheduling would be tricky since he has a show that night at Staples Center in Los Angeles -- but that nothing is finalized.