Neil Patrick Harris

Tony Awards host Neil Patrick Harris grew up watching the over-the-top, toney Tonys at his childhood home in New Mexico. But he never thought he would be emceeing Broadway’s biggest night!

“I grew up in a really small town . . . It was not a really artistically driven town. There wasn’t a lot of theater to be spoken of at all,” said TV’s former “Doogie Houser, M.D.” in a conference call with reporters yesterday. “But once a year you’d get to sit in front of the TV and watch (the Tony Awards).”

This year’s awards will air Sunday at 8 p.m. on CBS. Last year, “The View” funnygal Whoopi Goldberg hosted the annual stage show.

“I just loved that you could see live snippets and numbers from big, giant shows. It’s crazy . . . the babysteps that led me to the helm of the ship.”

Harris, 35, who stars as a womanizing cad in the CBS sitcom “How I Met Your Mother,” said he thought the Broadway biggies would have tried to score an “A-list feature film star to boost the ratings.”

But Neil isn’t a stranger to treading the boards. He starred as Lee Harvey Oswald in the Stephen Sondheim musical “Assassins” in 2004.

“I really love getting people to see live theater, and I think it’s a rock-on season.”

As for his Sunday night gig at Radio City Music Hall, Harris said that he wants “to take a page out of (2005 host) Mr. (Hugh) Jackman’s book” but he’s also angling to change the show’s structure so that people are encouraged to sit through the show to the end.

Also amongst his Tony Awards duties: Harris will present the nightly Top Ten List on “The Late Show with David Letterman” tonight.